Second Childhood
Part 2
By the time they got to the emergency room, Spencer had managed to stop crying despite the ache in his forehead. At the desk, Hotch explained that his son, Jack, had been abducted and had banged his head during the rescue. They didn’t have to wait very long for a nurse to lead them into a cubicle and provide Spencer with a brightly printed hospital gown.
Once Spencer was laying down on the examination bed, the nurse reached over and plucked a few stray hairs away from the wound on his forehead. “Wow, looks like you really banged your head there, little man. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I tripped and fell against the corner of a cabinet. It was very sharp,” Spencer replied, realizing for the first time that people would now be calling him “little man” and other child-appropriate terms of endearment, instead of “Dr. Reid.” He didn’t want to think about it.
“Well, the doctor will be here soon, and we’ll get you fixed up and feeling better in no time!”
After the nurse had gone out again, Spencer miserably turned his head away from Hotch and closed his eyes, thinking. What if they couldn’t change him back and he had to grow up a second time? Worse – what if he were stuck in this five-year-old body <i>forever</i>? And why did it have to happen now, when he was already dealing with the fact that half the team had lied to him? The thought of having to be dependent on somebody he could no longer trust was sickening. He tried to tell himseslf that he’d survive, if only because he’d grown up that way. With his mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and forgetting to take her pills most of the time, he hadn’t been able to trust her to do anything for him. But he’d never expected anything else for the simple reason that he’d never known her any other way. In comparison, he had trusted Hotch, JJ, and Emily, and their betrayal had wounded his soul all the more because he hadn’t seen it coming.
Eventually, a matronly-looking female doctor came in, checked Spencer all over for any signs of violence or abuse after his “abduction,” then finally focused on the gash on Spencer’s head. “Did he lose consciousness?”
“No,” said Spencer quickly, and Hotch smiled a little, then answered the same thing.
Spencer forced himself to keep quiet after that, letting Hotch explain that no, he hadn’t shown any signs of dizziness or vomiting, didn’t seem unusually sleepy or sensitive to noise or light, and his speech was not slurred.
“Well, I think we’ll just stitch this up, then, and you can go home in a few minutes,” the doctor announced.
“Maybe he should have an X-ray,” Hotch suggested. “A CAT scan.”
“I don’t think so,” the doctor said. “He’s not showing any signs of concussion. Keep an eye on him, of course, and if his condition changes for the worse, bring him in again, but I think he’ll be all right.”
She went out, and after saying brightly, “I’ll be right back,” the nurse followed. Any other time, Spencer would have remarked on Hotch acting like an over-protective parent, and maybe thrown in some statistics for good measure, but he really didn’t feel like speaking nicely to his boss just at the moment.
The nurse came back in with a tray of supplies. “All right, Jack, I’m going to give you a little shot in your forehead to take the pain away. It’ll just be a little pinprick, won’t hurt much at all. Do you want to sit on Daddy’s lap?”
“No,” Spencer said, trying not to snap.
“Going to be a brave boy, huh? Okay, here we go. You can close your eyes if you want.” She steadied his head with one hand and pricked the skin carefully with the needle. Spencer winced as it went in, but managed not to make a sound.
While they were waiting for the topical anaesthetic to take effect, Spencer heard Hotch’s phone buzz. He glanced over to see the man take it out, decline the call, then put it away again.
The nurse had just started the first stitch when the phone buzzed again.
“Go ahead if you have to take it,” Spencer said, sounding more petulant than he meant to, and it seemed for a moment that Hotch actually would excuse himself. But then he stopped and, to Spencer’s amazement, turned his phone right off.
“I don’t have to take it,” Hotch declared. “You’re more important right now.”
Spencer looked away. The nurse finished the stitches, put a bandage across the wound, then smiled brightly. “All done! Now I’ve got a lollipop here for such a brave boy. What’s your favourite flavour?”
“Coffee,” Spencer replied automatically, and the nurse laughed.
“I don’t think we have coffee flavoured lollipops,” she said, sorting through the box. “Would you prefer cola or strawberry?”
Spencer took the cola-flavoured lollipop. Sugar was sugar, and he could at least pretend it had caffeine. “Thank you.”
Then he had to change back from the hospital gown to the overlarge shirt, and let Hotch pick him up again to walk back to the car. When they were both settled in the SUV, Hotch turned his phone back on, and almost immediately, it buzzed again.
“You’d better get that.” Spencer took out his lollipop to speak. “What if it’s Emily, pretending to be dead again?”
“Reid,” Hotch said warningly, but he took the call. It must have been somebody official, because he answered it by saying, “This is Agent Hotchner.”
He listened, then asked, “You know what he was working on?” A long pause, and then he nodded. “Yes, one of my agents.” Pause. “No, he seems to be fine, except for the fact that he looks like he’s four years old.” Pause. “Twenty nine.” Short pause. “That would be good.” Another pause. “Well, we can certainly bring him in when we get back to Quantico.” Pause. “All right, we can do that. What’s your ETA?”
Hotch looked back at Spencer. “That was SHIELD. Dr Sakenfeld was working for them, until he went rogue. They’ll be taking him into custody as soon as they get here.”
Although SHIELD officially stood for Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, Spencer had heard both students and professors at Cal-Tech derisively referring to it as Strange (or Spooky or Supernatural) Happenings In Every Last Doghouse. It dealt with paranormal and superhuman matters, and Spencer had never been attracted to working with that kind of thing. His only interest in the recently re-discovered Captain America had been to idly wonder once or twice how Steve Rogers was getting along psychologically, dealing with the transition from the 1940’s to the modern world.
“They want to check you over, too, run some tests,” Hotch went on. “See what Dr Sakenfeld did.”
Spencer sighed. “And I suppose my healthcare proxy has to come with me.”
“Reid, I’m sure you have the Bureau regulations memorized,” Hotch said, which was true, so naturally, Spencer took a moment to check for loopholes.
“You could let me go by myself if we claim I’m on loan to SHIELD as a consultant,” he suggested.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere by yourself,” Hotch said.
“Before we go, can I borrow your phone?” Spencer asked. “I want to tell Morgan where you’re taking me.”
“I’m taking you back to the hotel first, Reid,” Hotch said, but then he handed over the phone anyway, and started the engine.
Spencer dialled, and Morgan answered on the first ring. “Hey, man, what’s up? How’s Reid?”
“I’m fine,” Spencer said.
“Oh, hey, Pretty Boy, how’s your head? How many stitches did you get?”
“Three, and no concussion, and I even got a lollipop.” He heard Morgan chuckle. “But listen. Hotch has been talking to somebody from SHIELD. Dr Sakenfeld used to work for them, but then he went rogue. Now they want to run some tests on me.”
“That’s good!” Morgan exclaimed. “Maybe they can find a way to reverse the process.”
“Maybe,” Spencer said. “But they’ll need time to gather and correlate his data to even understand what he was doing and how he was doing it. And they’ll want to replicate the results, too, before they try to reverse anything. Hopefully they’ll test it using pigs or something else instead of people.”
“So you might be stuck like this for a while,” Morgan said. “Are we talking weeks here? Months?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer said.“I hope it’s not years, Morgan, I don’t want to go through puberty again!”
Morgan laughed out loud at that. “I hear ya, kid!”
But from Spencer’s point of view, it wasn’t funny, it was frighteningly possible, and one fear was leading to another. “Morgan, Hotch says he’s taking me back to the hotel, but if something happens –“
“Pretty Boy, you’re not still worried about Hotch and JJ sending you away and faking your death, are you?” Morgan interrupted. “Now, look, I know I’ve had problems with the way this whole Emily thing was handled, too, and I know you’ve just been de-aged – man, I can’t believe I’m saying that – but try to think logically and rationally for a moment. Why would they do such a thing to you? There’s nobody chasing you, nobody like Ian Doyle who wants you dead, is there?”
“No,” Spencer had to admit. But fear wasn’t rational or logical. “I just – Morgan, I feel like I can’t trust them anymore. They lied to me, both of them. I visited JJ every week since Emily – since they told us she was dead – and I went to Hotch’s pretty often, too, and they never once told me the truth, they just let me cry!”
“I know,” Morgan said with a heartfelt sigh. “I know.”
“They could have trusted me! I wouldn’t have betrayed Emily!”
“I know,” Morgan said again.
“What if I’d started using Dilaudid again to help with the pain?” Spencer went on. “Would they have let me? Would they have let it get that far?”
“You didn’t--?”
“No, but I thought about it,” Spencer said. “More than once. It just hurt so bad. Do you know the only reason I didn’t start using again?”
“No, kid, what?”
“Because I didn’t want Emily to be disappointed in me. I mean, I don’t know what I believe about the afterlife, if there even is one, but it still kinda felt like … I didn’t want to dishonour her memory.”
“That’s a good reason, kid.” Morgan sighed. “I’m glad you didn’t go that far.”
“And now it turns out she was alive the whole time and –“ At the sudden lack of motion, Spencer stopped and looked around. He’d forgotten he was in the SUV with Hotch, and now they were in the hotel parking lot.
“They made the wrong call,” Morgan was saying. “They hurt all of us, kid, not just you.”
“We’re here,” Spencer said. “Morgan, let’s talk about this later.”
He disconnected before Morgan could reply, and wriggled his way out of the seatbelt, but when he opened the door, Hotch was already standing there.
“Reid, if you were thinking about taking Dilaudid again, why didn’t you tell me, or JJ, or somebody?” he asked.
“Would it have made a difference?” Spencer asked. “If I’d told you I was craving, or if I’d actually taken some, would you have broken down and said, “hey, Reid, guess what, Emily’s been alive all along and all your pain’s been for nothing”? Would you have said that, Hotch? Would JJ have?”
“If I could have foreseen this, I would have,” Hotch said. “And I wish now that I had.”
“Hotch, can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have let me destroy myself just because of Emily?” Spencer asked. And without hesitation, Hotch looked into his eyes and said, “I wouldn’t have, Reid. I would not have let you destroy yourself.”
It was so unexpected that Spencer gaped at him for a long moment. He’d expected Hotch to prevaricate at best, or just say nothing instead of denying it.
“I knew you were grieving, and I hated having to hurt you, but I thought you were dealing with it,” Hotch said. “I guess I didn’t realize how much pain you were in.”
“Did you think it wasn’t like you and Haley?” Spencer asked. “That I didn’t miss her as much as you missed your wife, because I wasn’t married to Emily, because we hadn’t had a kid together?”
Hotch grimaced slightly. “Something like that.”
“Sometimes, maybe, friendship can go deeper than marriage,” Spencer said. “And she was my friend, Hotch! I don’t have many friends, not enough that I can afford to lose any of them, and now I feel like I’ve lost three of you, even though you’re all here, you’re all still alive.”
“I did what I thought was best at the time, and I apologize,” Hotch said. “I’m so sorry I put you through all this. I’m sorry I lied and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I should have.”
“That doesn’t make it all better,” Spencer protested. His voice came out close to a whine.
“No, it doesn’t,” Hotch agreed. “But it’s all I can do for now.”
Then he reached out both arms. “I hope you can trust me enough to carry you up to the hotel room.”
“Yeah,” Spencer replied, letting Hotch pick him up. “But that’s about all the trust I can give you.”
“Then I’ll start with that,” Hotch said.
+++++
Spencer expected Hotch to take him to his own hotel room, but instead, he knocked on JJ’s door. She answered almost immediately and smiled widely when she saw them. “Come in! I’ve got some clothes for you, Spence.”
The rest of the team was there as well, and when everybody but Rossi pulled out their phones for pictures, Spencer realized they’d all been waiting.
“Smile, Pretty Boy,” Morgan told him, which made Spencer scowl. “Yeah, gonna send this one to Garcia.”
“You know what they say, pics or it didn’t happen,” Emily put in.
Hotch deposited Spencer on the bed next to two big shopping bags, and JJ immediately started to unpack them. “Jeans, shirts, here’s a button-down sweater in your size, I’ve got some underwear –“
“Sword-Swinging Cats?” Spencer asked, looking at the logo on the front of the package. “What’s that?”
“It’s a television show for kids,” JJ explained.
“So naturally all the cool kids are wearing them.” That was Emily again – maybe she’d been the one to pick them out.
“Since when have I ever cared what the cool kids are wearing?” Spencer demanded, checking out the selection of socks. At least here there were several different colours to choose from so that he could mix them up the way he liked. It was good luck to wear mismatched socks.
“Henry wears them,” JJ said. “He loves the Cat Pack.”
“Jack’s got some, too,” Hotch added. “One time he said I should get some armour like Christian Puffwhiskers so I wouldn’t get hurt again.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Emily said.
Spencer didn’t think that it was at all sweet to be wearing the same kind of underwear as his his own godson, let alone his boss’s son, but at least it was better than running around commando in a loose shirt that covered him from head to foot and then some. He grabbed a selection of clothes and slid down off the bed to change in the bathroom.
All of the clothes were a little big, but at least they didn’t flap like a tent in the wind. Once he was dressed, Spencer tried to get a look at himself in the mirror, but it was too high up. He put the toilet seat down and climbed up on it, then leaned over as much as he could. But the mirror was too far away, and all he could see was part of a blurred face with a blurred white spot at the top, where his bandage was, and blurry hair. Sighing, he got down again and went out, even managing an embarrassed little smile when the others took more pictures.
“Don’t you look nice,” JJ said. “Here, try the shoes.”
Spencer pulled on the pair of sneakers, and JJ even knelt down and felt for his big toe with her thumb to determine how much room there was between it and the end of the shoe, just as though they were at the shoe store.
“How do they feel?” she asked.
“All right,” he said. Even though he still felt hurt by her betrayal, she had done something nice for him, something that he’d really needed, and so, grudgingly, he added, “Thank you.”
“We’ve got all your old stuff here,” she said, indicating something farther away on the bed. Despite the slightly fuzzy outlines, Spencer recognized his go-bag and his messenger bag.
“Thanks,” he said again, then looked up at his boss. “Um, Hotch, I’m going to need new glasses.”
“Oh,” Hotch said in surprise. “I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait until after SHIELD’s checked you over and we get back home.”
Either Morgan had already alerted the team to SHIELD’s involvement, or Hotch had told them while Spencer was in the bathroom, because nobody questioned the mention of the other agency.
“I can manage,” Spencer said quickly. “It’s not as bad as when I was, um, older. I can still read.”
He’d practiced on one of the tattered old magazines in the waiting room at the ER. He’d had to hold the pages closer to his face, of course, but he could still read.
“Everybody take a seat,” Hotch said, and the team found places to sit that would still allow them to look at him. Spencer climbed onto the bed and crawled over to Morgan, who put a hand on his shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
“So SHIELD will be here soon,” Hotch went on, “but I hope we have time to discuss a few things before then. First off, I want to apologize to all of you for lying about what happened to Emily.”
Astonished that Hotch was bringing the subject up in front of the team after he’d already apologized to Spencer in person, Spencer looked from him to JJ, and saw a mixture of surprise and relief on her face.
“You made the wrong call by not trusting us,” Morgan said, repeating what he’d already said to Spencer on the phone.
“I know,” Hotch admitted. “I thought I was doing the right thing to keep her safe, but now I realize that my actions are having consequences that hurt some of you and could tear this team apart. I want to prevent that, and repair anything that’s broken. I already know that Reid doesn’t trust me anymore. Morgan?”
“I was hurt, man,” Morgan said. “And I’ll admit, I felt a little betrayed, but not as much as Reid here. I still trust you to have my back in the field, Hotch, but, hey, if you ever tell me again that someone I know is dead, I’ll want to see the body.”
“And I will let you see it,” Hotch said.
“I apologize as well,” JJ said, turning her gaze to Spencer. “I felt so bad, watching you cry –“
“If you’re going to say that it hurt you more than it hurt me, then don’t,” Spencer told her.
“I wasn’t going to say that. I wanted to tell you, the whole time, but I just couldn’t,” JJ explained. “And I’m sorry. Do you think you can forgive me?”
“No,” Spencer said truthfully. “And I can’t trust you anymore, either. Not right now, anyway.”
Visibly hurt, JJ looked away, and there was an awkward silence in the room before Hotch took up the team interrogation again.
“Rossi?” he asked.
“I had an inkling,” Rossi said, and when Spencer glared him in shock, he defended himself. “I’m good at what I do. Not saying you’re not good at it, too, but I do have more experience than you.”
“Emily—“ Hotch started to ask, but was interrupted by the buzz of his phone. He lifted it out of his pocket for a look, then said, “SHIELD. They were faster than I’d thought they’d be. All right, the rest of you can finish up here and take the jet home. I’m accompanying Reid to SHIELD for his tests, and we can talk more about this, and the entire Reid situation, when we get back. Reid, get your things.”
“You might need these,” Emily said, quickly stuffing the remaining child-sized clothes into Spencer’s go-bag.
“Thanks,” he murmured, and tried to pick it up at the same time as his messenger bag. They were both surprisingly heavy, or rather, he reminded himself, his five-year-old body was smaller and weaker, and now his messenger bag dangled around his ankles instead of his hips. He’d have to be careful not to trip on it, he thought, he didn’t want to end up in the ER again, even if they did hand out cola-flavoured lollipops.
“Need some help, Pretty Boy?” Morgan asked, taking both bags from him.
“Yeah,” Spencer admitted. “Thanks, Morgan.”
Out in the corridor, they waited for Hotch to open his own room and get his own go-bag. Spencer looked up at Morgan. “I wish you were coming with me, instead of Hotch.”
“I wish I were, too, kid.” Morgan opened Spencer’s bag and rummaged around until he found Spencer’s phone. “Here, keep this close, and call me whenever you want.”
Spencer stuffed the phone into the pocket of his jeans, where it just barely fit. “Okay, but Morgan? Please make sure you insist on seeing my body if –“
“I will, but you know what? I truly believe you’ll be safe with Hotch now. I can tell he’s trying to make up for this whole situation,” Morgan said.
“Yeah, it’s just that -- I don’t know why I’m so scared of him and JJ doing something that means I never get to see you again,” Spencer admitted.
“Don’t you think being turned into a four-year-old could have something to do with it?” Morgan grinned. “Maybe you still have your intellect and your memories, but maybe your emotions got a little de-aged, too?”
“I never thought of that,” Spencer said, and when Morgan reached out to tousle his hair, he didn’t even try to duck away. He was still thinking it over when Hotch emerged and they went down to the lobby.
Part 3
Part 1
Back to Criminal Minds Page
Once Spencer was laying down on the examination bed, the nurse reached over and plucked a few stray hairs away from the wound on his forehead. “Wow, looks like you really banged your head there, little man. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I tripped and fell against the corner of a cabinet. It was very sharp,” Spencer replied, realizing for the first time that people would now be calling him “little man” and other child-appropriate terms of endearment, instead of “Dr. Reid.” He didn’t want to think about it.
“Well, the doctor will be here soon, and we’ll get you fixed up and feeling better in no time!”
After the nurse had gone out again, Spencer miserably turned his head away from Hotch and closed his eyes, thinking. What if they couldn’t change him back and he had to grow up a second time? Worse – what if he were stuck in this five-year-old body <i>forever</i>? And why did it have to happen now, when he was already dealing with the fact that half the team had lied to him? The thought of having to be dependent on somebody he could no longer trust was sickening. He tried to tell himseslf that he’d survive, if only because he’d grown up that way. With his mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and forgetting to take her pills most of the time, he hadn’t been able to trust her to do anything for him. But he’d never expected anything else for the simple reason that he’d never known her any other way. In comparison, he had trusted Hotch, JJ, and Emily, and their betrayal had wounded his soul all the more because he hadn’t seen it coming.
Eventually, a matronly-looking female doctor came in, checked Spencer all over for any signs of violence or abuse after his “abduction,” then finally focused on the gash on Spencer’s head. “Did he lose consciousness?”
“No,” said Spencer quickly, and Hotch smiled a little, then answered the same thing.
Spencer forced himself to keep quiet after that, letting Hotch explain that no, he hadn’t shown any signs of dizziness or vomiting, didn’t seem unusually sleepy or sensitive to noise or light, and his speech was not slurred.
“Well, I think we’ll just stitch this up, then, and you can go home in a few minutes,” the doctor announced.
“Maybe he should have an X-ray,” Hotch suggested. “A CAT scan.”
“I don’t think so,” the doctor said. “He’s not showing any signs of concussion. Keep an eye on him, of course, and if his condition changes for the worse, bring him in again, but I think he’ll be all right.”
She went out, and after saying brightly, “I’ll be right back,” the nurse followed. Any other time, Spencer would have remarked on Hotch acting like an over-protective parent, and maybe thrown in some statistics for good measure, but he really didn’t feel like speaking nicely to his boss just at the moment.
The nurse came back in with a tray of supplies. “All right, Jack, I’m going to give you a little shot in your forehead to take the pain away. It’ll just be a little pinprick, won’t hurt much at all. Do you want to sit on Daddy’s lap?”
“No,” Spencer said, trying not to snap.
“Going to be a brave boy, huh? Okay, here we go. You can close your eyes if you want.” She steadied his head with one hand and pricked the skin carefully with the needle. Spencer winced as it went in, but managed not to make a sound.
While they were waiting for the topical anaesthetic to take effect, Spencer heard Hotch’s phone buzz. He glanced over to see the man take it out, decline the call, then put it away again.
The nurse had just started the first stitch when the phone buzzed again.
“Go ahead if you have to take it,” Spencer said, sounding more petulant than he meant to, and it seemed for a moment that Hotch actually would excuse himself. But then he stopped and, to Spencer’s amazement, turned his phone right off.
“I don’t have to take it,” Hotch declared. “You’re more important right now.”
Spencer looked away. The nurse finished the stitches, put a bandage across the wound, then smiled brightly. “All done! Now I’ve got a lollipop here for such a brave boy. What’s your favourite flavour?”
“Coffee,” Spencer replied automatically, and the nurse laughed.
“I don’t think we have coffee flavoured lollipops,” she said, sorting through the box. “Would you prefer cola or strawberry?”
Spencer took the cola-flavoured lollipop. Sugar was sugar, and he could at least pretend it had caffeine. “Thank you.”
Then he had to change back from the hospital gown to the overlarge shirt, and let Hotch pick him up again to walk back to the car. When they were both settled in the SUV, Hotch turned his phone back on, and almost immediately, it buzzed again.
“You’d better get that.” Spencer took out his lollipop to speak. “What if it’s Emily, pretending to be dead again?”
“Reid,” Hotch said warningly, but he took the call. It must have been somebody official, because he answered it by saying, “This is Agent Hotchner.”
He listened, then asked, “You know what he was working on?” A long pause, and then he nodded. “Yes, one of my agents.” Pause. “No, he seems to be fine, except for the fact that he looks like he’s four years old.” Pause. “Twenty nine.” Short pause. “That would be good.” Another pause. “Well, we can certainly bring him in when we get back to Quantico.” Pause. “All right, we can do that. What’s your ETA?”
Hotch looked back at Spencer. “That was SHIELD. Dr Sakenfeld was working for them, until he went rogue. They’ll be taking him into custody as soon as they get here.”
Although SHIELD officially stood for Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, Spencer had heard both students and professors at Cal-Tech derisively referring to it as Strange (or Spooky or Supernatural) Happenings In Every Last Doghouse. It dealt with paranormal and superhuman matters, and Spencer had never been attracted to working with that kind of thing. His only interest in the recently re-discovered Captain America had been to idly wonder once or twice how Steve Rogers was getting along psychologically, dealing with the transition from the 1940’s to the modern world.
“They want to check you over, too, run some tests,” Hotch went on. “See what Dr Sakenfeld did.”
Spencer sighed. “And I suppose my healthcare proxy has to come with me.”
“Reid, I’m sure you have the Bureau regulations memorized,” Hotch said, which was true, so naturally, Spencer took a moment to check for loopholes.
“You could let me go by myself if we claim I’m on loan to SHIELD as a consultant,” he suggested.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere by yourself,” Hotch said.
“Before we go, can I borrow your phone?” Spencer asked. “I want to tell Morgan where you’re taking me.”
“I’m taking you back to the hotel first, Reid,” Hotch said, but then he handed over the phone anyway, and started the engine.
Spencer dialled, and Morgan answered on the first ring. “Hey, man, what’s up? How’s Reid?”
“I’m fine,” Spencer said.
“Oh, hey, Pretty Boy, how’s your head? How many stitches did you get?”
“Three, and no concussion, and I even got a lollipop.” He heard Morgan chuckle. “But listen. Hotch has been talking to somebody from SHIELD. Dr Sakenfeld used to work for them, but then he went rogue. Now they want to run some tests on me.”
“That’s good!” Morgan exclaimed. “Maybe they can find a way to reverse the process.”
“Maybe,” Spencer said. “But they’ll need time to gather and correlate his data to even understand what he was doing and how he was doing it. And they’ll want to replicate the results, too, before they try to reverse anything. Hopefully they’ll test it using pigs or something else instead of people.”
“So you might be stuck like this for a while,” Morgan said. “Are we talking weeks here? Months?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer said.“I hope it’s not years, Morgan, I don’t want to go through puberty again!”
Morgan laughed out loud at that. “I hear ya, kid!”
But from Spencer’s point of view, it wasn’t funny, it was frighteningly possible, and one fear was leading to another. “Morgan, Hotch says he’s taking me back to the hotel, but if something happens –“
“Pretty Boy, you’re not still worried about Hotch and JJ sending you away and faking your death, are you?” Morgan interrupted. “Now, look, I know I’ve had problems with the way this whole Emily thing was handled, too, and I know you’ve just been de-aged – man, I can’t believe I’m saying that – but try to think logically and rationally for a moment. Why would they do such a thing to you? There’s nobody chasing you, nobody like Ian Doyle who wants you dead, is there?”
“No,” Spencer had to admit. But fear wasn’t rational or logical. “I just – Morgan, I feel like I can’t trust them anymore. They lied to me, both of them. I visited JJ every week since Emily – since they told us she was dead – and I went to Hotch’s pretty often, too, and they never once told me the truth, they just let me cry!”
“I know,” Morgan said with a heartfelt sigh. “I know.”
“They could have trusted me! I wouldn’t have betrayed Emily!”
“I know,” Morgan said again.
“What if I’d started using Dilaudid again to help with the pain?” Spencer went on. “Would they have let me? Would they have let it get that far?”
“You didn’t--?”
“No, but I thought about it,” Spencer said. “More than once. It just hurt so bad. Do you know the only reason I didn’t start using again?”
“No, kid, what?”
“Because I didn’t want Emily to be disappointed in me. I mean, I don’t know what I believe about the afterlife, if there even is one, but it still kinda felt like … I didn’t want to dishonour her memory.”
“That’s a good reason, kid.” Morgan sighed. “I’m glad you didn’t go that far.”
“And now it turns out she was alive the whole time and –“ At the sudden lack of motion, Spencer stopped and looked around. He’d forgotten he was in the SUV with Hotch, and now they were in the hotel parking lot.
“They made the wrong call,” Morgan was saying. “They hurt all of us, kid, not just you.”
“We’re here,” Spencer said. “Morgan, let’s talk about this later.”
He disconnected before Morgan could reply, and wriggled his way out of the seatbelt, but when he opened the door, Hotch was already standing there.
“Reid, if you were thinking about taking Dilaudid again, why didn’t you tell me, or JJ, or somebody?” he asked.
“Would it have made a difference?” Spencer asked. “If I’d told you I was craving, or if I’d actually taken some, would you have broken down and said, “hey, Reid, guess what, Emily’s been alive all along and all your pain’s been for nothing”? Would you have said that, Hotch? Would JJ have?”
“If I could have foreseen this, I would have,” Hotch said. “And I wish now that I had.”
“Hotch, can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have let me destroy myself just because of Emily?” Spencer asked. And without hesitation, Hotch looked into his eyes and said, “I wouldn’t have, Reid. I would not have let you destroy yourself.”
It was so unexpected that Spencer gaped at him for a long moment. He’d expected Hotch to prevaricate at best, or just say nothing instead of denying it.
“I knew you were grieving, and I hated having to hurt you, but I thought you were dealing with it,” Hotch said. “I guess I didn’t realize how much pain you were in.”
“Did you think it wasn’t like you and Haley?” Spencer asked. “That I didn’t miss her as much as you missed your wife, because I wasn’t married to Emily, because we hadn’t had a kid together?”
Hotch grimaced slightly. “Something like that.”
“Sometimes, maybe, friendship can go deeper than marriage,” Spencer said. “And she was my friend, Hotch! I don’t have many friends, not enough that I can afford to lose any of them, and now I feel like I’ve lost three of you, even though you’re all here, you’re all still alive.”
“I did what I thought was best at the time, and I apologize,” Hotch said. “I’m so sorry I put you through all this. I’m sorry I lied and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I should have.”
“That doesn’t make it all better,” Spencer protested. His voice came out close to a whine.
“No, it doesn’t,” Hotch agreed. “But it’s all I can do for now.”
Then he reached out both arms. “I hope you can trust me enough to carry you up to the hotel room.”
“Yeah,” Spencer replied, letting Hotch pick him up. “But that’s about all the trust I can give you.”
“Then I’ll start with that,” Hotch said.
+++++
Spencer expected Hotch to take him to his own hotel room, but instead, he knocked on JJ’s door. She answered almost immediately and smiled widely when she saw them. “Come in! I’ve got some clothes for you, Spence.”
The rest of the team was there as well, and when everybody but Rossi pulled out their phones for pictures, Spencer realized they’d all been waiting.
“Smile, Pretty Boy,” Morgan told him, which made Spencer scowl. “Yeah, gonna send this one to Garcia.”
“You know what they say, pics or it didn’t happen,” Emily put in.
Hotch deposited Spencer on the bed next to two big shopping bags, and JJ immediately started to unpack them. “Jeans, shirts, here’s a button-down sweater in your size, I’ve got some underwear –“
“Sword-Swinging Cats?” Spencer asked, looking at the logo on the front of the package. “What’s that?”
“It’s a television show for kids,” JJ explained.
“So naturally all the cool kids are wearing them.” That was Emily again – maybe she’d been the one to pick them out.
“Since when have I ever cared what the cool kids are wearing?” Spencer demanded, checking out the selection of socks. At least here there were several different colours to choose from so that he could mix them up the way he liked. It was good luck to wear mismatched socks.
“Henry wears them,” JJ said. “He loves the Cat Pack.”
“Jack’s got some, too,” Hotch added. “One time he said I should get some armour like Christian Puffwhiskers so I wouldn’t get hurt again.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Emily said.
Spencer didn’t think that it was at all sweet to be wearing the same kind of underwear as his his own godson, let alone his boss’s son, but at least it was better than running around commando in a loose shirt that covered him from head to foot and then some. He grabbed a selection of clothes and slid down off the bed to change in the bathroom.
All of the clothes were a little big, but at least they didn’t flap like a tent in the wind. Once he was dressed, Spencer tried to get a look at himself in the mirror, but it was too high up. He put the toilet seat down and climbed up on it, then leaned over as much as he could. But the mirror was too far away, and all he could see was part of a blurred face with a blurred white spot at the top, where his bandage was, and blurry hair. Sighing, he got down again and went out, even managing an embarrassed little smile when the others took more pictures.
“Don’t you look nice,” JJ said. “Here, try the shoes.”
Spencer pulled on the pair of sneakers, and JJ even knelt down and felt for his big toe with her thumb to determine how much room there was between it and the end of the shoe, just as though they were at the shoe store.
“How do they feel?” she asked.
“All right,” he said. Even though he still felt hurt by her betrayal, she had done something nice for him, something that he’d really needed, and so, grudgingly, he added, “Thank you.”
“We’ve got all your old stuff here,” she said, indicating something farther away on the bed. Despite the slightly fuzzy outlines, Spencer recognized his go-bag and his messenger bag.
“Thanks,” he said again, then looked up at his boss. “Um, Hotch, I’m going to need new glasses.”
“Oh,” Hotch said in surprise. “I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait until after SHIELD’s checked you over and we get back home.”
Either Morgan had already alerted the team to SHIELD’s involvement, or Hotch had told them while Spencer was in the bathroom, because nobody questioned the mention of the other agency.
“I can manage,” Spencer said quickly. “It’s not as bad as when I was, um, older. I can still read.”
He’d practiced on one of the tattered old magazines in the waiting room at the ER. He’d had to hold the pages closer to his face, of course, but he could still read.
“Everybody take a seat,” Hotch said, and the team found places to sit that would still allow them to look at him. Spencer climbed onto the bed and crawled over to Morgan, who put a hand on his shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
“So SHIELD will be here soon,” Hotch went on, “but I hope we have time to discuss a few things before then. First off, I want to apologize to all of you for lying about what happened to Emily.”
Astonished that Hotch was bringing the subject up in front of the team after he’d already apologized to Spencer in person, Spencer looked from him to JJ, and saw a mixture of surprise and relief on her face.
“You made the wrong call by not trusting us,” Morgan said, repeating what he’d already said to Spencer on the phone.
“I know,” Hotch admitted. “I thought I was doing the right thing to keep her safe, but now I realize that my actions are having consequences that hurt some of you and could tear this team apart. I want to prevent that, and repair anything that’s broken. I already know that Reid doesn’t trust me anymore. Morgan?”
“I was hurt, man,” Morgan said. “And I’ll admit, I felt a little betrayed, but not as much as Reid here. I still trust you to have my back in the field, Hotch, but, hey, if you ever tell me again that someone I know is dead, I’ll want to see the body.”
“And I will let you see it,” Hotch said.
“I apologize as well,” JJ said, turning her gaze to Spencer. “I felt so bad, watching you cry –“
“If you’re going to say that it hurt you more than it hurt me, then don’t,” Spencer told her.
“I wasn’t going to say that. I wanted to tell you, the whole time, but I just couldn’t,” JJ explained. “And I’m sorry. Do you think you can forgive me?”
“No,” Spencer said truthfully. “And I can’t trust you anymore, either. Not right now, anyway.”
Visibly hurt, JJ looked away, and there was an awkward silence in the room before Hotch took up the team interrogation again.
“Rossi?” he asked.
“I had an inkling,” Rossi said, and when Spencer glared him in shock, he defended himself. “I’m good at what I do. Not saying you’re not good at it, too, but I do have more experience than you.”
“Emily—“ Hotch started to ask, but was interrupted by the buzz of his phone. He lifted it out of his pocket for a look, then said, “SHIELD. They were faster than I’d thought they’d be. All right, the rest of you can finish up here and take the jet home. I’m accompanying Reid to SHIELD for his tests, and we can talk more about this, and the entire Reid situation, when we get back. Reid, get your things.”
“You might need these,” Emily said, quickly stuffing the remaining child-sized clothes into Spencer’s go-bag.
“Thanks,” he murmured, and tried to pick it up at the same time as his messenger bag. They were both surprisingly heavy, or rather, he reminded himself, his five-year-old body was smaller and weaker, and now his messenger bag dangled around his ankles instead of his hips. He’d have to be careful not to trip on it, he thought, he didn’t want to end up in the ER again, even if they did hand out cola-flavoured lollipops.
“Need some help, Pretty Boy?” Morgan asked, taking both bags from him.
“Yeah,” Spencer admitted. “Thanks, Morgan.”
Out in the corridor, they waited for Hotch to open his own room and get his own go-bag. Spencer looked up at Morgan. “I wish you were coming with me, instead of Hotch.”
“I wish I were, too, kid.” Morgan opened Spencer’s bag and rummaged around until he found Spencer’s phone. “Here, keep this close, and call me whenever you want.”
Spencer stuffed the phone into the pocket of his jeans, where it just barely fit. “Okay, but Morgan? Please make sure you insist on seeing my body if –“
“I will, but you know what? I truly believe you’ll be safe with Hotch now. I can tell he’s trying to make up for this whole situation,” Morgan said.
“Yeah, it’s just that -- I don’t know why I’m so scared of him and JJ doing something that means I never get to see you again,” Spencer admitted.
“Don’t you think being turned into a four-year-old could have something to do with it?” Morgan grinned. “Maybe you still have your intellect and your memories, but maybe your emotions got a little de-aged, too?”
“I never thought of that,” Spencer said, and when Morgan reached out to tousle his hair, he didn’t even try to duck away. He was still thinking it over when Hotch emerged and they went down to the lobby.
Part 3
Part 1
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