Reckless

Chapter 38

Toni's eyes were sore from crying. Both her top and bottom lips were split. She cringed as she carefully covered the evidence with eyeliner and lipstick before she left for work. Her stomach was in knots at the thought of seeing Spencer again after the awful fight they had. As she entered the elevator, Toni took a shaky uneven breath. She lost count of the times she picked up her phone to call him over the last two days. A few times, she made it all the way outside and into her car with the intention of driving over to his apartment. The slightest sound in the hallway of her apartment building sent her scurrying to her door in the hopes that he was about to knock.

Finally, Toni packed up her son and went to the dojo. She couldn't spar with her shoulder still healing. But that didn't mean she couldn't work off some steam. She sprinted around the track until she almost passed out from exhaustion. When she was done punishing herself with laps, she did kata poses in front of the mirror until her entire body burned. Toni finished her grueling workout with controlled meditation, sitting in silence until she felt like she'd regained some sort of control over her emotions.

Now that she was riding the elevator up towards the BAU bullpen, all that control slipped away in an instant. Her hands were shaking and she was fighting to suck in a full breath of air. Toni calmed herself by repeating the words that had become her mantra over the weekend. You can fix this. Just apologize and everything is going to be okay. Toni forced herself to take a deep breath in through her nose. She blew it out slowly as the elevator doors dinged open.

Toni's eyes darted around the bullpen, searching for any signs that Spencer might have already arrived. She was equally relieved and upset to find his desk empty and void of his usual multitude of books and coffee cups. The area around Spencer's desk was silent and empty. But on the contrary, there was a flurry of noise and voices coming from one of the briefing rooms. Toni moved towards the commotion, curious as to what it might be about. They didn't have a case, at least not as far as she knew. But that could change at any moment.

Toni felt her heart leap when she heard Spencer's name mentioned several times. There was a panicked edge to JJ's voice that immediately put Toni on alert. If she wasn't already anxious enough, when she appeared in the doorway of the briefing room, all the noise and chatter she heard from outside immediately came to a stop. Toni's colleagues all stopped to stare at her. They had mixed expressions of concern and worry on their faces, but it was Hotch that stepped forward and spoke.
"Reid was arrested," he declared. Hotch was never one to waste words. And this was no exception. "In Mexico. We're trying to get the details now." Hotch stared at her expectantly. It took Toni a moment to realize why. He was hoping she might know more about the situation than the rest of the team did. "Do you know what he might have been doing there?"

"I don't…," Toni stuttered. "Mexico? Why was Spencer in Mexico?" She paused, swallowing the hard lump in her throat. "I haven't talked to him," Toni admitted. "We had a fight." She sucked in another hard breath. But her shock quickly gave way to worry, bringing with it the need for more information. "What was he arrested for?," she asked.

Toni watched as her colleagues passed nervous glances between themselves. Hotch stepped closer, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder before he answered her question. "He was arrested for murder."

"What?," Toni gasped. She sputtered and stuttered in disbelief. "How in the- there's no way…" She tried to convince herself that there must be some mistake. But the somber expression on Hotch's face left no room for mistakes. As the reality of the situation sunk in, Toni felt the meager contents of her stomach rising up.

Toni turned, running from the room and darting into the closest bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet before what little she forced herself to eat made its unwelcome reappearance. Toni vomited forcefully, retching into the toilet bowl until there was nothing left inside her but bile. She sank to her knees before slumping back onto her ass. The tile floor was cold and hard under her as Toni hugged her knees to her chest and began to sob.

"Toni."

The voice was soft and full of concern for her. Penelope uttered her name again as she pushed the stall door open.

"We're going to sort this out," JJ offered, appearing in front of the stall before she leaned in and flushed Toni's vomit down the toilet.

"That's right,"Penelope agreed. "This must be some sort of misunderstanding. Hotch will sort it out. You'll see. He won't let anything bad happen to Spencer."

The total confidence in Penelope's voice brought Toni's head up from her knees. She reached forward, pulling a length of toilet paper from the dispenser and using it to wipe her mouth. JJ darted from the room, returning a moment later with a bottle of water. Toni twisted off the cap, taking a few hard gulps before she spoke.

"It's not just the arrest… we had a fight," Toni admitted. "A really bad one."

"I'm sure you can make up," Penelope suggested, her tone hopeful.

Toni shook her head before she took another sip of water. Reaching for more tissue, Toni did a more thorough job of wiping off her mouth. What was revealed under her smeared lipstick made JJ crouch down next to her. The slim blonde woman reached a gentle hand over, catching Toni's chin with her knuckle so she could get a better look at the healing cuts on her lips.

"What happened to your face?," JJ asked. Penelope gasped at JJ's implication. She couldn't imagine Spencer getting mad enough to hurt anyone, let alone Toni. He adored her.

"That was an accident," Toni explained. She wasn't sure if accident was the right word. Sheer stupidity on both their parts was the cause of her facial injuries. But Spencer didn't hit her on purpose. "...and even if it wasn't, I deserved it," Toni lamented.

"No one deserves that," JJ countered.

"Oh no?," Toni asked. A fresh burst of tears was filling her eyes, threatening to spill over. Somewhere along the line, the truth she was hiding had become a lie. It was eating her up from the inside out, infecting every aspect of her life. "Spencer is Romeo's father."

This time it was JJ's turn to gasp. Her face turned pale and for a moment it looked like was going to puke right along with Toni. When she recovered from her shock, she glanced up at Penelope. The woman was making a feeble attempt at looking surprised. But she wasn't exactly known for her ability to hide her true feelings.

"You don't look shocked," JJ observed. "Why aren't you shocked?"

"What do you mean?," Penelope asked. "I'm as shocked as you," she insisted. Penelope covered her mouth with her hands, trying to physically stop the truth from bubbling out of her. "Luke said I better keep quiet about it," she quickly admitted. "He said it wasn't my business," Penelope added with a roll of her eyes. Didn't Luke know that everything was her business?

Before Toni could get mad at Luke for spilling her secret, Penelope explained that she was concerned about how fast Spencer fell for her. She admitted that she might have done a non-FBI sanctioned deep dive on Toni's personal life. Once Penelope discovered Romeo's birthdate and the fact that he wasn't Toni's ex's son, she was able to figure out the rest. Luke only confirmed her suspicions and issued her a strict warning to mind her own business. Normally, she couldn't keep a secret longer than a few hours. But she kept herself quiet by eagerly awaiting the joyous moment when Spencer found out Toni's son was his. She'd already started planning their engagement party in her mind.

"I was waiting for you to tell him… This wasn't how I imagined it would happen," Penelope said, looking down at Toni and her split lips with concern.

There was a loud knock on the bathroom door before it was cracked open. "Toni?," Luke called out. "Are you okay in there?"

"Not really," she grumbled under her breath. At the moment, she was pretty far from being okay. "You can come in," she offered, shaking her head when Alvez cautiously eased his way into the ladies bathroom. He side stepped JJ, wrapping his arm around Penelope's waist as he looked down at Toni.

"Spencer found out about Romeo," Penelope told him, keeping her voice quiet in the echoing tile room.

"Bet that went over well," Luke offered, shaking his head. He fought back the urge to remind Toni that he told her this would happen. She was obviously feeling bad enough already. There were dark circles under her eyes that she wasn't able to completely hide with makeup. Her hands were trembling slightly when she lifted them to brush the stray hairs out of her face.

"Let's get you up off the floor," Luke suggested. He leaned down, offering Toni his hand. She wrinkled her nose up, staring at his hand as if he was holding a turd in it.
"I need another minute," Toni groaned. "If I stand up now, I'm going to hurl again for sure. My stomach's been off all weekend. I think it's from all the stress."

JJ cocked her head slightly to the side. A knowing expression formed on her face before she grabbed for Luke's hand and used it to hoist herself up onto her feet. "Stay right here," she chirped. "I'll be right back with something I think might help." Toni watched her dash off, curious as to what she was about to retrieve from her desk and desperately hoping it was a roll of antacid tablets. They didn't even have to be tums, she'd be perfectly happy with off brand.

"Here!," JJ said as she rushed back into the bathroom. She reached down, thrusting a white foil packet in Toni's general direction. Toni took it from her, mostly to keep from having the item shoved directly into her face. She turned the packet over, squinting at the small printed words. When she realized what JJ was offering her, Toni immediately tried to hand it back.

"I'm not pregnant," she huffed. The foil packet hung in midair, still clenched in Toni's hand. The fingers of her other hand were tapping against her bent knee as she counted up the days in her head. "What's the date?," Toni asked. But before anyone could answer, she let out a string of foul grumbling curse words. She retracted her hand with the pregnancy test in it.

"Help me up," Toni barked, reaching for Luke's hand and fighting back the rolling waves of nausea that followed her abrupt change of position. Once she was on her feet, she pushed him out of the toilet stall and snapped the door shut, locking it into place. Her fingers slipped against the slick foil packet. She lifted it, ripping the thick packaging with the corner of her tooth. A few moments later, she was snapping the lid onto the test and pulling her pants back up.

Luke was quick to take possession of the test, offering her up what he assumed was a helpful pointer. "Are you sure you shouldn't pee more on it?," he asked. He lifted the plastic wand, putting it closer to his face and taking an experimental sniff. "It doesn't smell like pee."

"What's wrong with you?," Penelope snipped, her palm colliding gently with the back of his head. "Put it down on the counter!"

Luke grumbled in complaint as he set the plastic wand down on the counter, handling it like it was a ticking time bomb. Toni washed her hands before grabbing a few paper towels from the dispenser. She wet them with cold water and began wiping at the back of her neck. Once she felt like she'd removed as much sweat as she could, she leaned back against the closest wall and closed her eyes.

"Just tell me when the two minutes is up," Toni requested. "I can't look."

"I don't think you'll have to wait," JJ replied as she leaned down over the test. "I'm not sure if I should offer you congratulations or my condolences… but that looks like a plus sign to me."

Toni's eyes popped open, widening as she moved forward and glared down at the test. One look at the results sent her streaking back into the nearest stall to retch up anything that might still be left inside her stomach. Toni flushed the toilet, swiping her hair back before she exited the stall. She was rinsing her mouth out with a swig of water when a second man began knocking on the bathroom door.

"What's going on in here?," Hotch asked. He hovered in the doorway, offering his four agents a disapproving look. He didn't seem like he was going to enter the ladies bathroom. Not until he saw the pregnancy test resting on the counter top. Hotch stepped forward, confirming what he thought the item was. When he and Hailey were trying for a second child, he saw more than his fair share of pregnancy tests. "Which one of you is pregnant?," he asked.

Luke was quick to shake his head, holding up his hands in mock surrender. Penelope swatted at him again before shaking her own head. Then she ticked her head towards Toni, pointing discreetly in the other woman's direction.

Hotch took a moment to look Toni over. He knew her shoulder still wasn't healed, but that wasn't obvious by looking at her. She also had a split lip and dark circles under her red rimmed eyes. Her tanned face was a few shades paler than normal. She looked terrible, like she was barely able to keep herself upright. Hotch moved slowly towards her, setting his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into his touch as a fresh batch of tears filled her eyes. "Everything is going to be alright," he promised.

"You're staying here," Hotch warned. He was expecting an objection from her. But Toni just leaned her head back against the wall and she wiped the tears from her eyes. "JJ, Alvez, get ready. Wheels up in thirty." Once he made his announcement, Hotch headed for the door.

"Wait, where are we going?," JJ asked.

Hotch paused in the bathroom doorway, favoring her with one of his signature intense gazes. "Mexico."