Second Childhood
Part 1
The floor beneath Spencer’s feet tilted suddenly and disappeared, and he couldn’t help exclaiming in surprise as he felt himself drop. The space beneath was dark – no, it was full of blue light – and it seemed for one incredible moment that he was floating in it. There was pain, agony, a sensation of being pulled inside out, or no, a feeling of being squashed like Play-Doh in a child’s fist, or no, a sudden awareness of what it must be like to be a black hole, already crushed into a tiny, tiny space but having everything in the universe, including light, including his scream, being pulled in to crush him even more –
And then the pressure eased, and he was falling again, and the landing was surprisingly soft. Spencer lay there gasping for a moment, feeling somehow as though he’d been squashed smaller than when he’d started to fall. The blue light was still shining above, almost painful to look at, so he squinted and turned his head away. Something hard poked his jaw and he heard a squawk of “Reid? Reid?”
Oh, right. He must have lost his earpiece in the fall – and knocked his contacts loose as well. He could feel them scraping his eyeballs where they shouldn’t be, and everything looked weird. Funny, that had never happened before. Trying hard not to blink and make things worse, Spencer raised his hand to adjust them, and was surprised to see that a huge swath of blurry fabric came with it. Was that his shirt? Had it come off in that strange tunnel of blue light? It looked more like it had stretched somehow, or maybe that was just the way the light was refracted down here, but no, that didn’t make sense. He shook his arm until the sleeve fell back to his elbow, then reached for his eyes. No matter how he adjusted his contacts, though, he still couldn’t see properly, and to make things worse, the lenses also seemed way too big and scratchy.
Once he’d noticed it, Spencer suddenly couldn’t keep his contacts in any longer. He took them out and cradled them carefully in one hand, then used the other to reach for his earpiece and held it to his ear. Hotch was calmly asking for an update, and Reid activated his microphone.
“I’m okay,” he said. His voice sounded strangely high and child-like. “I fell through a trapdoor, but I’m fine.”
There was silence, and then Spencer heard a door opening behind him. He quickly rolled over so that he could see if it was friend or foe, and relaxed once he recognized JJ. Of course it had to be JJ, the last person he wanted to see. Her very presence irked him; he’d much rather have seen Morgan or Rossi.
“Who was that?” he heard someone ask through the earpiece. At the same time, JJ gave Spencer a friendly smile and reached out her free hand, holstering her gun with the other one. Spencer blinked, realizing he could see her almost clearly, even without his contacts. Weird.
“Hi, my name’s Jennifer, I’m with the FBI,” JJ said, sounding as calm and reassuring as though she were dealing with a child victim. Spencer shot her an impatient look, then realized there might be somebody else in the room that he hadn’t noticed, and glanced around as much as he could. Nope, nobody else. Was she pranking him? It seemed more like something Morgan would do.
“Can you tell me your name?” JJ continued on in that tone of voice that was sickeningly sweet enough to grate on Spencer’s nerves. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt,” Spencer snapped. “I mean, look, I landed on this!”
“This” was a huge foam mat that took up most of the floor space. Far above, he could still see the tunnel of the blue light that he’d fallen through – it had felt much longer at the time, but from below it looked surprisingly small – and there were the walls, and JJ, and nothing else. JJ looked strange, though, different from the last time he’d seen her. Taller, somehow. A lot taller. It had to be an optical illusion, Spencer thought.
“Okay, you’re not hurt, that’s good. Can you tell me your name?” JJ asked again, still using that voice.
“Would you cut it out?” Spencer demanded. Things were getting too weird and it was making him irritable. He tried to get up, feeling as though he were tangled in swaths of fabric, and managed to get to his hands and knees. In the slight dimples he’d formed in the foam mat, something shifted towards his knee. He glanced down, saw his gun, and reached for it automatically.
“If you can tell me who you are,” JJ was saying, “we can get you back to your mommy and daddy--”
“Mommy and daddy?” Spencer mocked, picking the revolver up. JJ stopped abruptly as he tried to get a better grip on it, and he let his own voice trail off. This couldn’t be his gun, it was much too big for his hand, and his hand – his hand looked so small and his fingers so thin and undefined, and his sleeve was slipping down again, and it was so big – so big – and –
“Honey, give me the gun,” JJ said, and before Spencer could react, she had taken it out of his grip.
“Hey!” Spencer’s voice came out as a high squeak, not at all conveying his outrage. He stared at her in amazement. Her hand had been larger than his, so much larger, and though he’d tried to hang on, she’d managed to pull the weapon from his hand. His tiny, tiny hand. He looked at it again, then struggled to his knees and looked down at himself properly for the first time since landing. His FBI ballistic vest hung to mid-thigh and his sleeves reached the mat, his hands ending where he’d normally expect his elbows to be. As he stared, he felt an sliding sensation around his waist and realized that his trousers and his underwear were starting to slip down.
“What’s your name?” JJ asked, sitting down on the mat next to him. The motion caused Spencer to rock and his trousers shifted alarmingly. He made a grab for his waistband, but his hand collided with his vest and he barely got it around to the side in time to catch the escaping clothing. His feet were trapped in the long pant legs; his shoes were somewhere else on the mat.
“Oh, give up, Jennifer!” he snapped, using her full name in annoyance. He still sounded like a little boy. “I’m Spencer! Dr. Spencer Reid. Remember me, we were friends until you lied to me for months, told me Emily was dead when she was really alive, and all the time you two were playing Scrabble online?” His voice went even higher at the end and it made him wince.
Open-mouthed, shocked speechless, JJ stared at his face, then down at the letters across the front of his vest, and then at his face again. “You … what … You can’t be Spencer. You’re … four years old?”
“I’m not four, I’m twenty nine! I fell through this trapdoor and there was a tunnel of blue light, and I don’t know what happened or why I’m so small, but I’m still me, I’m still Spencer Reid!”
Slowly, obviously searching for words, JJ reached for her microphone, but before she could say anything, somebody else burst into the room, squealing in delight.
“It worked! It worked! Oh, my g-d, it finally worked this time!”
The man – it had to be Dr Sakenfeld – rushed towards Spencer, his hands outstretched and a greedy look of delight on his face as though he wanted to snatch Spencer up and kiss him, or worse. Spencer ducked defensively away behind JJ, but the doctor pushed her aside so hard that she hit the floor. His other hand caught Spencer by his sleeve, and for a moment, Spencer thought he could wriggle out of his clothes and get free. But then Dr Sakenfeld grabbed the back of his vest, jerked him upright and managed to envelope him in a “straitjacket” hug that pinned both his arms across his chest. With panic and adrenaline racing through him, Spencer drummed his heels into the man’s thighs as Dr Sakenfeld rushed out of the room, but only succeeded in flinging off his trousers and his underpants.
“FBI, freeze!” JJ commanded from behind, and there was a familiar voice from ahead, too. “Ryan Sakenfeld, FBI! Put the child down!”
Dr Sakenfeld finally stopped, and Spencer recognized Hotch, his gun pointing directly at them. Two policemen from the local law enforcement agency that the FBI was working with for this particular case approached from behind Hotch, spreading out and weaving through the various pieces of equipment in the huge, haphazard-looking lab, but keeping their guns pointed at both Dr Sakenfeld and Spencer.
“Just let me check him over, see how perfectly it worked,” Dr Sakenfeld pleaded, squeezing Spencer even tighter. “Just an hour! One more hour, I’ll give myself up after I’ve had just one hour to check the results …”
An hour of letting this man ‘check him over?’ Spencer kicked him again, trying to aim for the doctor’s crotch, but either he missed, or it didn’t make an impression. He couldn’t believe how small and helpless he felt, how easily he’d been overpowered.
“We’ll check him over,” Hotch told him. “Just let the boy go and we’ll take it from here.”
“No, you have to let me scan him!” Dr Sakenfeld protested, turning towards one of the larger machines. Spencer wasn’t sure what kind of scanner it was; parts of it looked familiar, but it had been modified into something else. Remembering the tunnel of blue light, and the feeling of being crushed in a black hole, Spencer thought the scanner looked distinctly malevolent, and kicked out again.
More members of the team were coming down the stairs now. Spencer squinted for a better look, identifying the fuzzy figures as Emily first, then Morgan, Rossi, and another policeman. Remembering his contacts, he realized he’d let go of them in all the confusion, but it was hardly something to be worried about, not while he was in the face of being experimented on by an evil scientist, or worse, getting caught in any crossfire.
“You can’t shoot me without hitting the kid,” Dr Sakenfeld announced, taking another step.
“I can,” JJ pointed out.
Dr Sakenfeld turned to include her in his field of vision just as Hotch said, “If you want to scan him, you’re going to have to let go of him eventually.”
“Then I’ll take him with me,” Dr Sakenfeld threatened. “A hostage.”
Spencer bent his head forward, then thrust it back with all his might, hitting the doctor in the chin with the back of his skull. After a muffled curse, Dr Sakenfeld let go of him with one hand and smacked him on the thigh, hard enough to make Spencer cry out. Then there was a gunshot, and Dr Sakenfeld dropped to the floor, losing his grip on Spencer at the same time.
Spencer scrambled away, almost tripping over his clothes and his own feet, then squawked in surprise as he was lifted up again.
“I’ve got you,” said Hotch, cuddling Spencer to his chest. “You’re okay, buddy.”
Spencer looked down to see Dr Sakenfeld curled on the floor, holding his leg where it looked like he’d been shot in the calf, and glaring up at JJ.
“You shot me!” he gasped. “You shot me!”
“It’s just a graze,” she replied.
“We need medical assistance,” Spencer heard one of the officers say. “Down in the basement.”
Realizing how close the bullet had come to his own leg, Spencer glanced down, but couldn’t see any blood or feel any kind of injury.
“Put me down,” he told Hotch, ignoring the fact that he’d lost both his socks somewhere along the way as well. “I’m all right, I’m fine. I can walk on my own.”
“Spence, you haven’t got any shoes on,” JJ pointed out.
“I don’t care, just put me down,” Spencer repeated. “Hotch, it’s embarrassing to have your boss hold you like a baby.”
After staring at him for a very long moment, Hotch leaned over and placed him gently on his feet, then turned to JJ, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
“I’m Spencer Reid,” Spencer said, and JJ said almost the same thing simultaneously.
“That can’t be Reid,” Morgan said.
“Believe me, it is,” JJ said.
“I’m still me. I’ve still got my PhD’s and my eidetic memory,” Spencer said, “and I can still read 20 000 words a minute – well, I could if I had my glasses or if my contacts still fit.”
The expression on Hotch’s face changed from astonishment to anger, and he strode over to where Dr Sakenfeld was grimacing in pain. “What have you done to my agent?”
“I de-aged him,” Dr Sakenfeld snarled, and Emily laughed in disbelief. “What?”
“I de-aged him,” Dr Sakenfeld repeated, reiterating the words slowly and carefully as though speaking to idiots. “Made. Him. Younger. Everybody could profit from having twenty five years taken off their life!”
“Everybody over the age of fifty, you mean,” Morgan corrected him. “Not twenty-nine-year-old kids!”
“Can you reverse it?” Hotch asked.
“Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Because one of my best agents is now four years old!” Hotch sounded dangerously close to exploding.
Dr Sakenfeld glanced briefly at Spencer, then looked away and whined, “I haven’t got that far yet! I’ve only just perfected this part of it – at least, I hope it’s perfect. Be grateful he’s not dead – that’s what happened to my first two subjects before I realized what changes I had to make. And then the next one got de-aged too much, and the one after that broke her neck in the fall through the processor.”
Spencer felt panic welling up in him at the entire situation.
“Yes,” Hotch said in his coldest, most serious voice. “We know. We found them.”
“What do you mean, fall through the processor?” Rossi spoke up for the first time.
“Because the subjects has to be not only completely ungrounded but also completely free of anything whatsoever touching the earth, or else the processor goes all skeewampus. Yes, that’s a technical term, in case you were wondering – well, one that your brains will be able to understand. Anyway, I was too busy working on the de-aging part to worry about making the subjects be able to fly, so I thought freefall would do the job. Not enough room for a parachute, so I got the mat, and made a trapdoor so I wouldn’t have to push anybody else and risk falling down myself. And see? It worked! This subject is alive, walking and talking, and twenty five years younger!”
Trying hard not to sound like he was going to cry, Spencer asked, “Are there any side effects from this? And is it permanent or will it wear off eventually?”
“I don’t know!” Dr Sakenfeld protested, looking over Spencer’s head to the rest of the team. “You guys shot me before I could do any follow-up scans! Now look, I’m bleeding here, and obviously the subject would have expired by now if anything had gone really wrong, so I want some medical treatment before I answer any more questions.”
Hotch indicated the policemen. “You guys can take it from here. Just … don’t talk about this to the press, or anybody else. Consider it completely confidential. My team, upstairs.”
“De-aging, huh?” one of the policemen muttered, and the other added, “If that really worked …”
“I could use another test subject if you’re interested,” Dr Sakenfeld suggested, the whine in his voice turning suddenly to hopeful anticipation. Both policemen glanced over to Spencer and obviously found the current consequences too horrifying to contemplate. For his part, Spencer felt an uncharacteristically strong urge to shoot the doctor in the other leg, but remembered that JJ had his gun. He turned to look at her, wondering if he could get it back.
“I’ll help you get your clothes, Spence,” JJ said, already leaning over to get his trousers. One sock fell out as she picked them up, and she grabbed that, too.
“I can manage.” Spencer glanced around for his other sock, but Morgan got there first, and JJ was almost as fast retrieving his shoes. Left with nothing else to do, Spencer tried to hang back and go last as they headed to the stairs, but Morgan ushered him ahead of the others. He could feel them staring, no doubt profiling his younger self as he climbed each step.
“He’s so cute!” Emily whispered once they reached the top, but Spencer still heard, and turned to glare at her. Then his bare foot caught in the hem of his shirt, he tripped, and his forehead slammed into the corner of a cabinet. Pain exploded through his skull and he dropped to the floor, clasping both hands to his face and screaming.
“Ouch, I’ll bet that hurt!” Morgan exclaimed, picking him up for a full-body hug.
“Spence, you okay?” JJ asked, reaching out to stroke his hair. Spencer jerked his head away, which made it hurt even more, which made him bawl even louder. He buried his face in Morgan’s other shoulder, ignoring how the strap of Morgan’s ballistic vest scraped his cheek.
Rossi pushed by them. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
And Hotch was there, too. “What happened?”
“He tripped and banged his head,” Morgan explained, and Hotch grimaced in sympathy. “Reid, let me have a look.”
Spencer took his hands away from his head. They were streaked with blood, and no doubt his forehead looked even worse, because Hotch said, “That might need stitches. I’ll take him to the emergency room, and see if the doctors can check him over, too, while we’re there, make sure he’s all right otherwise.”
“NO!” Spencer screamed. “No, Morgan, don’t let Hotch take me. He’ll send me to Paris and tell everybody that I’m dead, and I’ll never see you again because you can’t trust him or JJ. You can’t trust them! Don’t let them take me!”
Even as he was speaking, he knew logically that it didn’t make sense, but he was so frightened that he just couldn’t stop himself.
“Whoa, whoa, hold on, Pretty Boy, nobody’s sending you to Paris,” Morgan said, rubbing Spencer’s back. “Nobody’s going to fake your death.”
“Reid –“ Hotch began, then stopped and started again. “I understand why you feel you can‘t trust us, and we can talk about that later. And I can see you’re hurt and scared. But I need to be the one to take you to ER because I am your healthcare proxy—“
“I don’t need a healthcare proxy!” Spencer sobbed. “I’m not incapacitated! I’m still capable of making my own decisions!”
“You look like you’re four years old, not to mention the way you’re acting,” Hotch stated, which made Spencer cry even more with anger, both at the rebuke and at the realization that he really was acting like a child. Hotch went on, “Now I’m sure that when you calm down, you’ll realize that you cannot go to the ER by yourself, and Bureau regulations mandate a healthcare proxy for situations like these.”
“I want to change my healthcare proxy to Morgan!”
“Well, we can’t do that until we get back to the Bureau,” Hotch said. “And in the meantime, you’re bleeding, so we’re going to the emergency room.”
“Here, kid,” said Rossi, appearing with a large white square in his hand. He pressed it gently to Spencer’s forehead. Spencer batted his fingers away, the blood-smeared gauze fell onto Morgan’s shoulder, and Spencer grabbed it again. “I can hold it myself!”
“Okay,” Rossi agreed mildly, stepping back.
“Come on,” said Hotch, reaching out and clearly expecting Spencer to transfer himself from Morgan’s arms to his. To Spencer’s dismay, Morgan helped hand him over, and Spencer wasn’t even fast enough to get a grip on the other man’s shirt.
“I can walk by myself, too,” Spencer grumbled as Hotch settled him on his hip.
“Says the kid who just tripped and banged his head,” Morgan teased.
“Emily distracted me! She said I was cute!” Spencer shot back, and didn’t understand why everybody chuckled, even Hotch.
“We’re going outside, and you don’t have any shoes on,” Hotch told him.
“Hotch, I can go shopping, get him some clothes that fit,” JJ volunteered.
“Yes, that’s good. We’ll meet back at the hotel,” Hotch agreed, and turned to the door.
Outside, Hotch opened the back door of the SUV and set Spencer on the seat. After a moment, he gently undid Spencer’s ballistic vest and pulled it off, accidentally grazing Spencer’s forehead and making him cry out even louder. Finally, he reached for the seatbelt and buckled him in. The chest belt went right up across Spencer’s neck and under his ear, and he realized he could be decapitated by it if they were to get into an accident. Wondering if he could trust Hotch enough not to get in an accident, Spencer sobbed some more, and wriggled his arm through so that the belt sat lower on his chest.
“You’ll be all right, Reid,” Hotch said.
Part 2
Back to Criminal Minds Page
And then the pressure eased, and he was falling again, and the landing was surprisingly soft. Spencer lay there gasping for a moment, feeling somehow as though he’d been squashed smaller than when he’d started to fall. The blue light was still shining above, almost painful to look at, so he squinted and turned his head away. Something hard poked his jaw and he heard a squawk of “Reid? Reid?”
Oh, right. He must have lost his earpiece in the fall – and knocked his contacts loose as well. He could feel them scraping his eyeballs where they shouldn’t be, and everything looked weird. Funny, that had never happened before. Trying hard not to blink and make things worse, Spencer raised his hand to adjust them, and was surprised to see that a huge swath of blurry fabric came with it. Was that his shirt? Had it come off in that strange tunnel of blue light? It looked more like it had stretched somehow, or maybe that was just the way the light was refracted down here, but no, that didn’t make sense. He shook his arm until the sleeve fell back to his elbow, then reached for his eyes. No matter how he adjusted his contacts, though, he still couldn’t see properly, and to make things worse, the lenses also seemed way too big and scratchy.
Once he’d noticed it, Spencer suddenly couldn’t keep his contacts in any longer. He took them out and cradled them carefully in one hand, then used the other to reach for his earpiece and held it to his ear. Hotch was calmly asking for an update, and Reid activated his microphone.
“I’m okay,” he said. His voice sounded strangely high and child-like. “I fell through a trapdoor, but I’m fine.”
There was silence, and then Spencer heard a door opening behind him. He quickly rolled over so that he could see if it was friend or foe, and relaxed once he recognized JJ. Of course it had to be JJ, the last person he wanted to see. Her very presence irked him; he’d much rather have seen Morgan or Rossi.
“Who was that?” he heard someone ask through the earpiece. At the same time, JJ gave Spencer a friendly smile and reached out her free hand, holstering her gun with the other one. Spencer blinked, realizing he could see her almost clearly, even without his contacts. Weird.
“Hi, my name’s Jennifer, I’m with the FBI,” JJ said, sounding as calm and reassuring as though she were dealing with a child victim. Spencer shot her an impatient look, then realized there might be somebody else in the room that he hadn’t noticed, and glanced around as much as he could. Nope, nobody else. Was she pranking him? It seemed more like something Morgan would do.
“Can you tell me your name?” JJ continued on in that tone of voice that was sickeningly sweet enough to grate on Spencer’s nerves. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt,” Spencer snapped. “I mean, look, I landed on this!”
“This” was a huge foam mat that took up most of the floor space. Far above, he could still see the tunnel of the blue light that he’d fallen through – it had felt much longer at the time, but from below it looked surprisingly small – and there were the walls, and JJ, and nothing else. JJ looked strange, though, different from the last time he’d seen her. Taller, somehow. A lot taller. It had to be an optical illusion, Spencer thought.
“Okay, you’re not hurt, that’s good. Can you tell me your name?” JJ asked again, still using that voice.
“Would you cut it out?” Spencer demanded. Things were getting too weird and it was making him irritable. He tried to get up, feeling as though he were tangled in swaths of fabric, and managed to get to his hands and knees. In the slight dimples he’d formed in the foam mat, something shifted towards his knee. He glanced down, saw his gun, and reached for it automatically.
“If you can tell me who you are,” JJ was saying, “we can get you back to your mommy and daddy--”
“Mommy and daddy?” Spencer mocked, picking the revolver up. JJ stopped abruptly as he tried to get a better grip on it, and he let his own voice trail off. This couldn’t be his gun, it was much too big for his hand, and his hand – his hand looked so small and his fingers so thin and undefined, and his sleeve was slipping down again, and it was so big – so big – and –
“Honey, give me the gun,” JJ said, and before Spencer could react, she had taken it out of his grip.
“Hey!” Spencer’s voice came out as a high squeak, not at all conveying his outrage. He stared at her in amazement. Her hand had been larger than his, so much larger, and though he’d tried to hang on, she’d managed to pull the weapon from his hand. His tiny, tiny hand. He looked at it again, then struggled to his knees and looked down at himself properly for the first time since landing. His FBI ballistic vest hung to mid-thigh and his sleeves reached the mat, his hands ending where he’d normally expect his elbows to be. As he stared, he felt an sliding sensation around his waist and realized that his trousers and his underwear were starting to slip down.
“What’s your name?” JJ asked, sitting down on the mat next to him. The motion caused Spencer to rock and his trousers shifted alarmingly. He made a grab for his waistband, but his hand collided with his vest and he barely got it around to the side in time to catch the escaping clothing. His feet were trapped in the long pant legs; his shoes were somewhere else on the mat.
“Oh, give up, Jennifer!” he snapped, using her full name in annoyance. He still sounded like a little boy. “I’m Spencer! Dr. Spencer Reid. Remember me, we were friends until you lied to me for months, told me Emily was dead when she was really alive, and all the time you two were playing Scrabble online?” His voice went even higher at the end and it made him wince.
Open-mouthed, shocked speechless, JJ stared at his face, then down at the letters across the front of his vest, and then at his face again. “You … what … You can’t be Spencer. You’re … four years old?”
“I’m not four, I’m twenty nine! I fell through this trapdoor and there was a tunnel of blue light, and I don’t know what happened or why I’m so small, but I’m still me, I’m still Spencer Reid!”
Slowly, obviously searching for words, JJ reached for her microphone, but before she could say anything, somebody else burst into the room, squealing in delight.
“It worked! It worked! Oh, my g-d, it finally worked this time!”
The man – it had to be Dr Sakenfeld – rushed towards Spencer, his hands outstretched and a greedy look of delight on his face as though he wanted to snatch Spencer up and kiss him, or worse. Spencer ducked defensively away behind JJ, but the doctor pushed her aside so hard that she hit the floor. His other hand caught Spencer by his sleeve, and for a moment, Spencer thought he could wriggle out of his clothes and get free. But then Dr Sakenfeld grabbed the back of his vest, jerked him upright and managed to envelope him in a “straitjacket” hug that pinned both his arms across his chest. With panic and adrenaline racing through him, Spencer drummed his heels into the man’s thighs as Dr Sakenfeld rushed out of the room, but only succeeded in flinging off his trousers and his underpants.
“FBI, freeze!” JJ commanded from behind, and there was a familiar voice from ahead, too. “Ryan Sakenfeld, FBI! Put the child down!”
Dr Sakenfeld finally stopped, and Spencer recognized Hotch, his gun pointing directly at them. Two policemen from the local law enforcement agency that the FBI was working with for this particular case approached from behind Hotch, spreading out and weaving through the various pieces of equipment in the huge, haphazard-looking lab, but keeping their guns pointed at both Dr Sakenfeld and Spencer.
“Just let me check him over, see how perfectly it worked,” Dr Sakenfeld pleaded, squeezing Spencer even tighter. “Just an hour! One more hour, I’ll give myself up after I’ve had just one hour to check the results …”
An hour of letting this man ‘check him over?’ Spencer kicked him again, trying to aim for the doctor’s crotch, but either he missed, or it didn’t make an impression. He couldn’t believe how small and helpless he felt, how easily he’d been overpowered.
“We’ll check him over,” Hotch told him. “Just let the boy go and we’ll take it from here.”
“No, you have to let me scan him!” Dr Sakenfeld protested, turning towards one of the larger machines. Spencer wasn’t sure what kind of scanner it was; parts of it looked familiar, but it had been modified into something else. Remembering the tunnel of blue light, and the feeling of being crushed in a black hole, Spencer thought the scanner looked distinctly malevolent, and kicked out again.
More members of the team were coming down the stairs now. Spencer squinted for a better look, identifying the fuzzy figures as Emily first, then Morgan, Rossi, and another policeman. Remembering his contacts, he realized he’d let go of them in all the confusion, but it was hardly something to be worried about, not while he was in the face of being experimented on by an evil scientist, or worse, getting caught in any crossfire.
“You can’t shoot me without hitting the kid,” Dr Sakenfeld announced, taking another step.
“I can,” JJ pointed out.
Dr Sakenfeld turned to include her in his field of vision just as Hotch said, “If you want to scan him, you’re going to have to let go of him eventually.”
“Then I’ll take him with me,” Dr Sakenfeld threatened. “A hostage.”
Spencer bent his head forward, then thrust it back with all his might, hitting the doctor in the chin with the back of his skull. After a muffled curse, Dr Sakenfeld let go of him with one hand and smacked him on the thigh, hard enough to make Spencer cry out. Then there was a gunshot, and Dr Sakenfeld dropped to the floor, losing his grip on Spencer at the same time.
Spencer scrambled away, almost tripping over his clothes and his own feet, then squawked in surprise as he was lifted up again.
“I’ve got you,” said Hotch, cuddling Spencer to his chest. “You’re okay, buddy.”
Spencer looked down to see Dr Sakenfeld curled on the floor, holding his leg where it looked like he’d been shot in the calf, and glaring up at JJ.
“You shot me!” he gasped. “You shot me!”
“It’s just a graze,” she replied.
“We need medical assistance,” Spencer heard one of the officers say. “Down in the basement.”
Realizing how close the bullet had come to his own leg, Spencer glanced down, but couldn’t see any blood or feel any kind of injury.
“Put me down,” he told Hotch, ignoring the fact that he’d lost both his socks somewhere along the way as well. “I’m all right, I’m fine. I can walk on my own.”
“Spence, you haven’t got any shoes on,” JJ pointed out.
“I don’t care, just put me down,” Spencer repeated. “Hotch, it’s embarrassing to have your boss hold you like a baby.”
After staring at him for a very long moment, Hotch leaned over and placed him gently on his feet, then turned to JJ, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
“I’m Spencer Reid,” Spencer said, and JJ said almost the same thing simultaneously.
“That can’t be Reid,” Morgan said.
“Believe me, it is,” JJ said.
“I’m still me. I’ve still got my PhD’s and my eidetic memory,” Spencer said, “and I can still read 20 000 words a minute – well, I could if I had my glasses or if my contacts still fit.”
The expression on Hotch’s face changed from astonishment to anger, and he strode over to where Dr Sakenfeld was grimacing in pain. “What have you done to my agent?”
“I de-aged him,” Dr Sakenfeld snarled, and Emily laughed in disbelief. “What?”
“I de-aged him,” Dr Sakenfeld repeated, reiterating the words slowly and carefully as though speaking to idiots. “Made. Him. Younger. Everybody could profit from having twenty five years taken off their life!”
“Everybody over the age of fifty, you mean,” Morgan corrected him. “Not twenty-nine-year-old kids!”
“Can you reverse it?” Hotch asked.
“Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Because one of my best agents is now four years old!” Hotch sounded dangerously close to exploding.
Dr Sakenfeld glanced briefly at Spencer, then looked away and whined, “I haven’t got that far yet! I’ve only just perfected this part of it – at least, I hope it’s perfect. Be grateful he’s not dead – that’s what happened to my first two subjects before I realized what changes I had to make. And then the next one got de-aged too much, and the one after that broke her neck in the fall through the processor.”
Spencer felt panic welling up in him at the entire situation.
“Yes,” Hotch said in his coldest, most serious voice. “We know. We found them.”
“What do you mean, fall through the processor?” Rossi spoke up for the first time.
“Because the subjects has to be not only completely ungrounded but also completely free of anything whatsoever touching the earth, or else the processor goes all skeewampus. Yes, that’s a technical term, in case you were wondering – well, one that your brains will be able to understand. Anyway, I was too busy working on the de-aging part to worry about making the subjects be able to fly, so I thought freefall would do the job. Not enough room for a parachute, so I got the mat, and made a trapdoor so I wouldn’t have to push anybody else and risk falling down myself. And see? It worked! This subject is alive, walking and talking, and twenty five years younger!”
Trying hard not to sound like he was going to cry, Spencer asked, “Are there any side effects from this? And is it permanent or will it wear off eventually?”
“I don’t know!” Dr Sakenfeld protested, looking over Spencer’s head to the rest of the team. “You guys shot me before I could do any follow-up scans! Now look, I’m bleeding here, and obviously the subject would have expired by now if anything had gone really wrong, so I want some medical treatment before I answer any more questions.”
Hotch indicated the policemen. “You guys can take it from here. Just … don’t talk about this to the press, or anybody else. Consider it completely confidential. My team, upstairs.”
“De-aging, huh?” one of the policemen muttered, and the other added, “If that really worked …”
“I could use another test subject if you’re interested,” Dr Sakenfeld suggested, the whine in his voice turning suddenly to hopeful anticipation. Both policemen glanced over to Spencer and obviously found the current consequences too horrifying to contemplate. For his part, Spencer felt an uncharacteristically strong urge to shoot the doctor in the other leg, but remembered that JJ had his gun. He turned to look at her, wondering if he could get it back.
“I’ll help you get your clothes, Spence,” JJ said, already leaning over to get his trousers. One sock fell out as she picked them up, and she grabbed that, too.
“I can manage.” Spencer glanced around for his other sock, but Morgan got there first, and JJ was almost as fast retrieving his shoes. Left with nothing else to do, Spencer tried to hang back and go last as they headed to the stairs, but Morgan ushered him ahead of the others. He could feel them staring, no doubt profiling his younger self as he climbed each step.
“He’s so cute!” Emily whispered once they reached the top, but Spencer still heard, and turned to glare at her. Then his bare foot caught in the hem of his shirt, he tripped, and his forehead slammed into the corner of a cabinet. Pain exploded through his skull and he dropped to the floor, clasping both hands to his face and screaming.
“Ouch, I’ll bet that hurt!” Morgan exclaimed, picking him up for a full-body hug.
“Spence, you okay?” JJ asked, reaching out to stroke his hair. Spencer jerked his head away, which made it hurt even more, which made him bawl even louder. He buried his face in Morgan’s other shoulder, ignoring how the strap of Morgan’s ballistic vest scraped his cheek.
Rossi pushed by them. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
And Hotch was there, too. “What happened?”
“He tripped and banged his head,” Morgan explained, and Hotch grimaced in sympathy. “Reid, let me have a look.”
Spencer took his hands away from his head. They were streaked with blood, and no doubt his forehead looked even worse, because Hotch said, “That might need stitches. I’ll take him to the emergency room, and see if the doctors can check him over, too, while we’re there, make sure he’s all right otherwise.”
“NO!” Spencer screamed. “No, Morgan, don’t let Hotch take me. He’ll send me to Paris and tell everybody that I’m dead, and I’ll never see you again because you can’t trust him or JJ. You can’t trust them! Don’t let them take me!”
Even as he was speaking, he knew logically that it didn’t make sense, but he was so frightened that he just couldn’t stop himself.
“Whoa, whoa, hold on, Pretty Boy, nobody’s sending you to Paris,” Morgan said, rubbing Spencer’s back. “Nobody’s going to fake your death.”
“Reid –“ Hotch began, then stopped and started again. “I understand why you feel you can‘t trust us, and we can talk about that later. And I can see you’re hurt and scared. But I need to be the one to take you to ER because I am your healthcare proxy—“
“I don’t need a healthcare proxy!” Spencer sobbed. “I’m not incapacitated! I’m still capable of making my own decisions!”
“You look like you’re four years old, not to mention the way you’re acting,” Hotch stated, which made Spencer cry even more with anger, both at the rebuke and at the realization that he really was acting like a child. Hotch went on, “Now I’m sure that when you calm down, you’ll realize that you cannot go to the ER by yourself, and Bureau regulations mandate a healthcare proxy for situations like these.”
“I want to change my healthcare proxy to Morgan!”
“Well, we can’t do that until we get back to the Bureau,” Hotch said. “And in the meantime, you’re bleeding, so we’re going to the emergency room.”
“Here, kid,” said Rossi, appearing with a large white square in his hand. He pressed it gently to Spencer’s forehead. Spencer batted his fingers away, the blood-smeared gauze fell onto Morgan’s shoulder, and Spencer grabbed it again. “I can hold it myself!”
“Okay,” Rossi agreed mildly, stepping back.
“Come on,” said Hotch, reaching out and clearly expecting Spencer to transfer himself from Morgan’s arms to his. To Spencer’s dismay, Morgan helped hand him over, and Spencer wasn’t even fast enough to get a grip on the other man’s shirt.
“I can walk by myself, too,” Spencer grumbled as Hotch settled him on his hip.
“Says the kid who just tripped and banged his head,” Morgan teased.
“Emily distracted me! She said I was cute!” Spencer shot back, and didn’t understand why everybody chuckled, even Hotch.
“We’re going outside, and you don’t have any shoes on,” Hotch told him.
“Hotch, I can go shopping, get him some clothes that fit,” JJ volunteered.
“Yes, that’s good. We’ll meet back at the hotel,” Hotch agreed, and turned to the door.
Outside, Hotch opened the back door of the SUV and set Spencer on the seat. After a moment, he gently undid Spencer’s ballistic vest and pulled it off, accidentally grazing Spencer’s forehead and making him cry out even louder. Finally, he reached for the seatbelt and buckled him in. The chest belt went right up across Spencer’s neck and under his ear, and he realized he could be decapitated by it if they were to get into an accident. Wondering if he could trust Hotch enough not to get in an accident, Spencer sobbed some more, and wriggled his arm through so that the belt sat lower on his chest.
“You’ll be all right, Reid,” Hotch said.
Part 2
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