Chapter Text
Buzzing in the air. Iron on your tongue, copper in your nose. Shivering. Cold linoleum under your skull – or maybe it was concrete. You have forgotten already.
A door. Footsteps - his. Always his. A hand on your face and you are pulling away, fighting back, but it must not be working because his rough grip easily sets you straight. The hand disappears and then your head is spinning, cheek burning. You are protesting, pleading, but you do not know if any of it is coming out.
“I’m sorry, love, but I can’t let them have you. You’re mine. Always.”
Vision flashing white. Ringing in your ears. Your head is pounding. Another impact, right in the center of your face. If your nose was not broken before, it must be now. He was apologising, but you cannot hear him anymore. You cannot hear anything, now that you think about it. Your head knocks back into the linoleum-maybe-concrete every time he hits you. Repeatedly, so quickly that you do not have time to recover. You do not have time to even breathe.
You think you are dying.
And just as suddenly as it started, it stops. You are left groaning on the floor. You can only hear the ringing in your ears, rising to a fever pitch. There is enough energy left in your body to writhe in pain – it is the only thing you can do.
You are teetering on the brink of consciousness when there are hands on you again, pressing into your shoulders. You are whining, begging, slurring your pleas for mercy through the blood in your teeth. These hands feel different, familiar, but you no longer trust the familiar. The hands cup your face, lift your torso, wrap around you, pull you into someone’s chest, and with as much strength as you can muster, you shove at the body. You try to open your eyes, to run, but your body is freezing up on you. Your head is spinning – or maybe the whole room is. You cannot think anymore.
You do not even remember when you black out.
-
Doctor Spencer Reid is in hysterics, and nobody can seem to pull him from the brink.
He paces the tile floor of the hospital waiting room. He wrings his hands, tugs harshly at his hair, gasps in-between sobs and frantic rambling, waves his hands violently as he speaks. He speaks like words are air to him, like it is the only thing he knows how to do. Facts, statistics, would-haves and could-haves and what-ifs. Nothing that matters right now.
On the sidelines, Penelope bites her lip. Watches. Opens her mouth, closes it again. Because nothing she can say will fix this.
She wishes Morgan was still there. He could help – he always seemed to know what to say to Reid. Unfortunately, he had stepped out after offering to grab food for everybody, leaving Penelope and Spencer alone in one of the worst situations they had ever been in. She feels absoutely useless – and so she waits.
Penelope does not stand up and intervene until Spencer, spiralling into a full-blown meltdown, crouches into a ball on the floor, slamming the heel of his fists against his head.
“Stupid,” he manages between the hyperventilation and the sharp strikes to his temple, “Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could I not fucking see it? I couldn’t- I didn’t even know- Idiot, how the fuck did I not know-”
And suddenly someone is kneeling in front of him, grabbing his wrists, holding them away from him as he swears and struggles and cries.
“Spe- Hey- Hey, Spencer, hey, stop! Stop it, you need to st- Spencer, listen to me!” Penelope, with her surprising strength, manages to hold him down, keep him from making it worse. She is hardly able to get a word in between his frantic muttering, but eventually he breaks. All of the fight leaves his body and he withers in front of her, sobbing brokenly.
“Spencer, sweetie, this is not your fault.” Penelope’s voice is heavy with tears. Once she is sure that he is not going to start hurting himself again, she carefully releases his wrists, instead moving her hands up to cup his face.
On any other occasion, Spencer would have shied away from the touch. Hidden his face, pushed her away, given her a smart remark. But the gentle press of her hands holds him together, keeps him from crumbling entirely, and it is only seconds before he lunges forward, burying his face into her bright cardigan.
Penelope would be lying if she said that she was not taken aback by the sudden movement, especially from somebody like him, but that fact alone lets her know how serious this is. She shushes him, rocking him gently on the hospital floor, rubbing his back and offering whispered assurances that everything will be okay, even though it does not feel like it.
She makes eye contact with Derek as he walks back in, tries not to notice how broken he looks. He and Spencer had become almost like brothers – she can only imagine the ache in his chest as he watches his brother fall apart.
After setting their food down on the small end table, Derek carefully steps over to the two and kneels down. Trying not to startle the younger agent, he reaches out a hand, but does not touch him, like a man approaching a wild animal.
“Hey, Reid.” His voice is soft, gentle. “Hey.”
Penelope pulls back a little, encouraging Spencer to sit up, and eventually he is able to hold himself up, head bowed as he rubs at his eyes. Morgan smiles.
“Hey, Pretty-Boy, there you are.” Spencer hardly reacts, desperately trying instead to get his breathing under control. Morgan finally makes contact, the hand on his shoulder trying to rub the life back into him. “Hey, I brought some food back. Why don’t we eat something, huh? When was the last time you ate?”
Spencer shrugs, even though he knows the answer. He had not been able to eat anything since you had been taken. He is sure that Morgan already knows that.
“Well, come on. Let’s eat.” Derek claps him on the shoulder, trying to look reassuring as he rises to his feet. Penelope starts to stand, waiting for a long moment for the third member to react at all. For several seconds, Spencer does not speak, just gasps painfully as he tries to pull himself together. When he is finally able to lift his head, Derek is offering him a hand. Shaking like a leaf, he takes it, ignoring how the other man grins as he pulls him up.
“Attaboy, there we go. Come on, easy does it, up you go.” Morgan releases him once he’s on his feet, albeit unsteadily, and it is quickly replaced with Penelope’s hand on his bicep, leading him over to the row of chairs.
As he sits, Morgan and Penelope share a nervous glance.
This is not going to be easy.