Second Childhood
Part 25
22 July 2012
With his new supervisor always available, Spencer was able to work without further worries or interruptions. January moved smoothly into February, winter gave way to spring, summer came, and suddenly, it was July. JJ had announced that she would celebrate her birthday in the park if they didn't have a case on that day, and by a miracle, they didn't. Hotch packed up everything he thought they would need and drove Spencer and Jack over to the meeting point. Rossi was already there, and to Spencer's chagrin, he had brought his dog as well.
"Oh, no, not Mudgie," Spencer groaned, but Jack ran over to say hello.
"Hi, Uncle Dave, can I pat Mudgie?"
"Sure, Jack." Rossi made Mudgie sit, and Jack stroked him. Spencer lingered by the parked car, twitching whenever the dog turned his head to look at him.
"Can I take him for a walk, Uncle Dave?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, but stay where we can see you." Rossi handed over the leash, and Jack said, "Come on, Mudgie."
Then he was almost pulled off his feet when Mudgie lunged towards Spencer, sniffing and barking. With a shout of fear, Spencer fled in the only direction that would take him out of Mudgie's reach by clambering up onto the hood of the car and racing up the windscreen onto the roof. "Help! Rossi, get him away!"
"He just wants to sniff you, Spencer," Jack tried to explain as Mudgie stood up on his hind legs, thrusting his nose towards the roof and barking.
"Come here, Mudgie," Rossi said, strolling over to take the leash. "Mudgie, heel! Sorry, Spencer, I thought he might be over it by now."
Mudgie put his forelegs on the ground again, and Rossi helped Jack walk him over to a nearby tree. Directing Mudgie to the shady spot, Rossi wrapped the extendable leash around the trunk and secured it.
"All right, Spencer, you can come down now," Hotch said, putting out his arms.
The next car pulled up just as Spencer carefully climbed into Hotch's embrace, and when Spencer saw that it was Morgan, and he was opening the back to get his own dog out, he tried to get back on the roof. "No! Not Clooney, too!"
"Oww, try not to kick me in the face again, Spencer," Hotch said.
"Kid, what're you doing?" Morgan asked, attaching the leash to Clooney's collar. "Clooney doesn't bite."
"No, but he'll sniff and bark, just like Mudgie does," Spencer said, having escaped Hotch's grip and cowering in the middle of the car roof.
And indeed, when Morgan and Clooney came over, Clooney lunged forward, barking, and Morgan had to pull him back. "Down, Clooney, easy, boy. Sorry, Spencer, I've never seen him do that before."
Spencer hoped Clooney wasn't staring at him so intently because he was waiting for a chance to get a taste and not just a sniff.
"I'm gonna take Clooney for a quick run, be right back," Morgan said, and they gallopped off. Spencer finally allowed Hotch to lift him to the ground, then saw a member of their team who did not have a dog. "JJ!"
JJ and Will were arriving on foot, Will pulling a wagon behind him in which Henry was balanced on top of their supplies. Jogging over, Spencer gave JJ a hug. "Happy birthday!"
"Thank you, Spencer," she replied.
"Did you get your birthday pancakes?"
"I sure did." She and Will shared one of those secret smiles that couples often share. Spencer looked away. "Hi, Henry."
"Hi," said Henry.
"Hey, Spencer," Will said. "You look taller, you growing?"
"Yes," Spencer announced proudly. After the Christmas disappointment, he'd made Hotch measure him once a month, and was relieved to see that he'd shot up between January and February, and again in late June.
"Henry's growing, too," JJ said. "He's sure able to get into more mischief now."
Now that they were in the park, Henry hopped out of the wagon and raced towards the nearby playground. JJ chased after him, and Will continued to pull the wagon until he reached the picnic table closest to the climbing structure.
Emily and Garcia arrived together, with Garcia getting a huge box out of the back of her car. "The cake's here, the party can start!"
JJ came back from the playground and met her at the picnic table. "Whoa, Penelope, that looks delicious!"
"Thank you, and happy birthday, girl!"
"Thank you." JJ beamed proudly.
Soon everybody was setting out containers of food, plates and silverware, and everything else needed for the celebration. Spencer was also glad to see that Penelope had put candles on JJ's cake, too.
"All right, kids, let's eat," Will called out to where Jack and Henry were both on the climbing net. "You, too, Morgan!"
Spencer looked around and saw Morgan and Clooney loping towards them. He tensed, but they were too far away from the car for him to reach it before Clooney would get him. Nor were there any trees with low branches that he could climb. The best he could hope for would be to get on Hotch's shoulders then persuade the man to get up on the picnic bench. Fortunately, however, Morgan tied Clooney to a tree before coming to the table, and Spencer relaxed again.
After they'd eaten, Will and Penelope lit the candles on the cake while Jack counted them and announced loudly, "Are you thirty four, Aunt JJ?"
"I sure am," she replied.
"Wow," he said. "Do you need help blowing out the candles? Because I'm really good at it!"
"Aww, thanks, Jack, you're sweet, but I'm not so old that I can't do it myself."
They sang the happy birthday song, and then JJ puffed all her candles out with just a little help from Henry, who had snuck up between her and Will and started blowing even before the song was over. Everybody laughed, and Garcia cut the cake, handing the first piece to the birthday girl. Spencer was pleased to notice that Henry had grown out of his possessive stage and did not make a grab for it. Garcia also helped stave off disaster by giving Henry the next piece, and the next one after that to Will. When Spencer finally got his piece, he had to agree with everybody else; it was delicious.
Once they were finished eating, Jack said, "Come on, Spencer, let's play!"
Spencer really wanted to sit and talk with the other adults, but Jack had devised a game that involved him and Spencer swinging plastic swords at each other while swarming over the various parts of the climbing tower. Resigned, Spencer took his sword and did his best to parry Jack's random attacks. Henry had put his Cat plushie in the wagon and was pulling it around the climbing structure, narrating a kind of adventure to himself that involved him stopping every so often and taking the Cat down the slide or doing something else, then going back for another round.
A boy and a girl came towards the playground, brandishing sticks and inserting themselves into Jack's game by shouting, "Salute, Sword-Swingers!"
With other Cat-fans there for Jack to interact with, Spencer thought it might be a good chance for him to get back to the picnic table, and lowered his plastic sword. The girl whacked it out of his hand with her branch and it sailed over the guard rail of the hanging bridge to land on the grass nearby.
"Hey!" Spencer exclaimed, and they both ran to it, but the girl was closer, and snatched it up.
"May I have it back, please?" Spencer asked.
"I want to play with it now," she insisted, and proceded to whack Spencer on the shoulder with it. "Evil will not triumph to-day, you mangy ferret!"
Spencer made a grab for the sword, but missed, and the girl swung it at his head, knocking his glasses askew. As he pushed them back to rights, he said, "Come on, give it back, it belongs to Jack over there, and if you want to play with it, you have to ask him first. But actually, I'm sure you've got enough imagination to pretend that your stick is a sword."
"But I want a real sword!"
"Oh, give it back to the poor kid," her brother shouted. The girl made a face, then threw the sword as high into the air as she could. It landed on the peaked roof of the octagonal tower between the hanging bridge and the huge net, slid down a bit, and stopped just short of falling off again.
"Go and get it, if you want it so bad," the girl said, and marched off. Spencer sighed and went back up the climbing structure, got up on the guard rail of the bridge, and transferred himself carefully to the roof. It wasn't that high, or that steep, and he was able to work his way around to where the sword was laying, only to have it snatched away just as he extended his fingers. Shocked, he looked up to see Jack coming from the other direction, and lost his balance.
Spencer flailed for one terrifying moment, and then next thing he knew, he had slammed into the side wall of Henry's wagon and he was screaming because his right arm hurt, hurt, HURT.
JJ was there first, and then Hotch, both of them hovering, lifting him up, touching him, and he screamed some more. "My arm, I think I broke my arm!"
"That doesn't look good," Hotch said, and then Will was there, too. "Here's an ice pack. Spencer, can you lay your arm carefully on top of this? It'll feel better."
Spencer screamed again as Will brought the ice pack up to the broken spot. Turning his head, Hotch said, "Jack, get the swords, we have to take Spencer to the ER."
"Jack, do you want to stay with us?" JJ offered. "You can play with Henry instead of sitting around in the boring waiting room."
"I wanna stay with Spencer," Jack said. "And Dad!"
"Of course you want to be with your family, little man," Will said and JJ confirmed it. "That's fine, Jack, I just thought I'd offer."
"I'm sorry for – for ruining your – your birthday, JJ," Spencer wailed, and JJ stroked his head with one hand. "It's okay, Spencer, my birthday's not ruined. The picnic was pretty much over, anyway. You just get better, okay?"
With Hotch's help, Spencer managed to walk slowly to the car, whimpering as each step jarred his arm. He could only grunt a response to everybody in the team who wished him a speedy and painless recovery.
Their stay in the ER seemed all the more long and tedious because Spencer couldn't hold a magazine to read or even focus on much of anything while they waited to be seen. It was another busy day, and again, there weren't enough chairs to go around, so he sat miserably on Hotch's lap in the waiting room. After a while, it occurred to him that his one-year anniversary of being de-aged was coming up in only two months, and he wondered if Hotch was going to bring up the subject of adoption if there hadn't been any word from SHIELD by then. As much as he liked being with Hotch and Jack, consenting to be adopted into their family would be tantamount to admitting he'd never be re-aged and would have to let his body grow up again. It was a depressing thought, but then the vibrations of his phone brought him back to the present.
"Hotch, my phone is ringing, can you get it out for me?" he asked, standing up.
"Sure, buddy." Hotch wriggled the phone out of Spencer's pocket, then put it into Spencer's left hand. They both ignored the disapproving gazes of the other people waiting nearby.
Without checking the caller, Spencer put the phone to his ear and said, "This is Spencer Reid."
"Hello, Dr Reid, it's Dr Kapoor here, do you remember me?" the man asked.
"Yes, I remember," Spencer said, straightening up in eager expectation.
"I wanted to talk to you about the effects of pointillism on Project Mustardseed," Dr Kapoor went on.
"Didn't that get cancelled?" Spencer asked.
"Officially, yes. Unofficially – can you come to the SHIELD base?"
"Right now?" The pain of his arm faded instantly away as hope shot through him. "Is it finished? Does it work?"
"Yes to both questions. Well, on pigs, anyway."
"Hotch, we have to go to SHIELD right away," Spencer said, and Jack perked up, too. "SHIELD? Where Captain America lives?"
"SHIELD?" Hotch asked, too.
"The machine," Spencer said, almost too excited to explain. "They've finished it! It works! We have to go right now!"
"What machine?" Jack asked.
"Tell them about your arm," Hotch said.
"Oh, yeah." Spencer turned back to his phone. "Dr Kapoor, I just broke my arm and we're in the waiting room at the ER. Should we wait for the X-rays, or come straight over and hope that the machine will do everything necessary?
"
"You broke your arm?" Dr Kapoor asked, and Spencer could hear a distinct note of disappointment in his voice. "Oh. Well. I'm not sure …" Although he turned his head away from the phone, Spencer clearly heard him yelling, "We're gonna need another pig!"
Then he addressed Spencer again. "Don't come yet. Get your arm checked out, and I'll call you back to-morrow after we've done more tests."
"To-morrow?" Spencer slumped in renewed depression and the pain returned with more intensity. "Oh. Okay."
A nurse came through and announced his name, and Spencer hung up, then handed his phone to Hotch for him to hold. He was examined and sent for X-rays, then had to wait for the doctor to come back and interpret them. Finally, the older man came in, studied, the pictures, then indicated the ulna of his own arm and said, "Looks like you broke this bone pretty good, son, and the edges are just a little bit out of alignment. See here on the picture how this piece sticks out there, and that piece sticks out here?"
"Yes," said Spencer. With his left index finger, he pointed to the picture of his radius. "This looks cracked, too."
"Good eyes! Yes, but that hasn't gone all the way through and it's still as straight as it should be. But with the other bone here, I'll need to move the broken pieces so that they form a straight line again. I think I can do that without having to operate. I'll give you a shot first, and that will hurt a little, but it'll make it so it won't hurt when I'm moving the bones, okay?"
"Okay," Spencer said. When the nurse came in with the prepared syringe on a tray, Spencer reached out with his left hand for Hotch, and held on tightly. He also watched closely as the doctor sprayed the area with antiseptic, then positioned the needle and poked it gently into the middle of the hematoma that had formed directly over the break. As predicted, it hurt enough to make Spencer cry out, but eventually, the doctor removed the needle.
"You can open your eyes now, Jack, it's over," Hotch said, and Spencer saw that Jack had scrunched up his face and closed his eyes as though it were happening to him. When Jack opened his eyes again and saw that the doctor was putting the syringe away, he looked more relieved than Spencer felt.
"You've probably seen other kids wearing a cast on a broken arm or broken leg, and maybe you've written your name on some of them, but we're going to put a splint on you for now," the doctor said. Spencer didn't tell him that nobody had ever asked him to sign their cast.
"The splint won't be firm enough for anybody to sign, and it'll hurt if they try," the doctor went on. "So don't let them. The splint is because your arm will swell up a little and that needs some space. And because we'll want to check the bone again to make sure it's healing all right, and it's easier to take a splint off than to cut through a hard cast. So, you'll go see your regular doctor on Thursday and they can take another X-ray, and then they'll get you a cast that all your friends can sign. You can probably even pick out your favourite colour. Okay?"
"I don't think they'll have lavender," Spencer said.
"Well, they might have purple, is that close enough?"
Spencer shrugged with his left shoulder. "Yeah, I guess."
"So, tell me again how you broke it?" the doctor asked, and Spencer told him about falling off the climbing frame and landing on the wagon.
"Well, I've seen a lot people fall off the wagon, but very few fall onto one," the doctor said, and Spencer grinned at the joke. Hotch even smiled, too, but Jack just looked confused.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," the doctor said, and went out. But it was more than a few minutes before he came back to check that the anaesthetic was working and finally said, "Well, let's get this all straightened out, then."
He manipulated the bones, but although Spencer felt them moving, he didn't feel any pain.
"There, I think that's got it," the doctor said. He and the nurse fitted a splint onto Spencer's arm and gave him a sling as well. When they'd finished, the doctor wrote out a prescription for a painkiller.
"This is for acetaminophen with codeine," he told Hotch, and Spencer jerked at the reference to the opiate.
After they'd left the hospital but before they got in the car, Spencer said, "Hotch, I don't want that painkiller. Just plain ibuprofen would be better."
"Why?" Hotch asked, and then he remembered, "Oh, because of the codeine? Sure, buddy, if that's what you want."
"Dad, what's codeine?" Jack asked.
"It's a kind of painkiller, Jack."
"I had some problems with it before," Spencer explained. "So it's better if I don't take it now."
"Oh."
He didn't think he could get addicted again, not with his younger body, but even the merest thought of taking it worried him.
As they started to drive, Jack asked excitedly, "Are we going to SHIELD, Dad? Can we see Captain America while we're there?"
"We're not going to SHIELD, we're going to the pharmacy to get some medicine for Spencer," Hotch replied.
"I thought Spencer said we had to go to SHIELD right now. You said that, didn't you, Spencer?"
"I said that, but then I found out I was wrong."
"Why were you wrong?" Jack wasn't letting it drop.
Spencer scrambled mentally for an explanation that Jack would believe. "Well, I thought they wanted me to help them test something, but then I told them about my broken arm, and they didn't want me to come in after all."
"What did they want you to test?"
"A special kind of machine." At least that was the truth, if not all of it.
"Can I help test it, too?"
"No, I don't think either of us can now."
"But I don't have a broken arm! I could do it!"
"Sorry, buddy, but they haven't asked you," Hotch said, pulling into a parking lot and finding a space.
"That's not fair," Jack said.
"Life isn't always fair," Hotch responded. "How about we get that medicine for Spencer and then some ice cream that we can eat at home, hmm?"
"Strawberry!" Jack exclaimed.
"Chocolate!" Spencer called.
"Maybe we should get Neapolitan, then," Hotch suggested, and opened the car door.
Part 26
Part 24
Return to Criminal Minds page
With his new supervisor always available, Spencer was able to work without further worries or interruptions. January moved smoothly into February, winter gave way to spring, summer came, and suddenly, it was July. JJ had announced that she would celebrate her birthday in the park if they didn't have a case on that day, and by a miracle, they didn't. Hotch packed up everything he thought they would need and drove Spencer and Jack over to the meeting point. Rossi was already there, and to Spencer's chagrin, he had brought his dog as well.
"Oh, no, not Mudgie," Spencer groaned, but Jack ran over to say hello.
"Hi, Uncle Dave, can I pat Mudgie?"
"Sure, Jack." Rossi made Mudgie sit, and Jack stroked him. Spencer lingered by the parked car, twitching whenever the dog turned his head to look at him.
"Can I take him for a walk, Uncle Dave?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, but stay where we can see you." Rossi handed over the leash, and Jack said, "Come on, Mudgie."
Then he was almost pulled off his feet when Mudgie lunged towards Spencer, sniffing and barking. With a shout of fear, Spencer fled in the only direction that would take him out of Mudgie's reach by clambering up onto the hood of the car and racing up the windscreen onto the roof. "Help! Rossi, get him away!"
"He just wants to sniff you, Spencer," Jack tried to explain as Mudgie stood up on his hind legs, thrusting his nose towards the roof and barking.
"Come here, Mudgie," Rossi said, strolling over to take the leash. "Mudgie, heel! Sorry, Spencer, I thought he might be over it by now."
Mudgie put his forelegs on the ground again, and Rossi helped Jack walk him over to a nearby tree. Directing Mudgie to the shady spot, Rossi wrapped the extendable leash around the trunk and secured it.
"All right, Spencer, you can come down now," Hotch said, putting out his arms.
The next car pulled up just as Spencer carefully climbed into Hotch's embrace, and when Spencer saw that it was Morgan, and he was opening the back to get his own dog out, he tried to get back on the roof. "No! Not Clooney, too!"
"Oww, try not to kick me in the face again, Spencer," Hotch said.
"Kid, what're you doing?" Morgan asked, attaching the leash to Clooney's collar. "Clooney doesn't bite."
"No, but he'll sniff and bark, just like Mudgie does," Spencer said, having escaped Hotch's grip and cowering in the middle of the car roof.
And indeed, when Morgan and Clooney came over, Clooney lunged forward, barking, and Morgan had to pull him back. "Down, Clooney, easy, boy. Sorry, Spencer, I've never seen him do that before."
Spencer hoped Clooney wasn't staring at him so intently because he was waiting for a chance to get a taste and not just a sniff.
"I'm gonna take Clooney for a quick run, be right back," Morgan said, and they gallopped off. Spencer finally allowed Hotch to lift him to the ground, then saw a member of their team who did not have a dog. "JJ!"
JJ and Will were arriving on foot, Will pulling a wagon behind him in which Henry was balanced on top of their supplies. Jogging over, Spencer gave JJ a hug. "Happy birthday!"
"Thank you, Spencer," she replied.
"Did you get your birthday pancakes?"
"I sure did." She and Will shared one of those secret smiles that couples often share. Spencer looked away. "Hi, Henry."
"Hi," said Henry.
"Hey, Spencer," Will said. "You look taller, you growing?"
"Yes," Spencer announced proudly. After the Christmas disappointment, he'd made Hotch measure him once a month, and was relieved to see that he'd shot up between January and February, and again in late June.
"Henry's growing, too," JJ said. "He's sure able to get into more mischief now."
Now that they were in the park, Henry hopped out of the wagon and raced towards the nearby playground. JJ chased after him, and Will continued to pull the wagon until he reached the picnic table closest to the climbing structure.
Emily and Garcia arrived together, with Garcia getting a huge box out of the back of her car. "The cake's here, the party can start!"
JJ came back from the playground and met her at the picnic table. "Whoa, Penelope, that looks delicious!"
"Thank you, and happy birthday, girl!"
"Thank you." JJ beamed proudly.
Soon everybody was setting out containers of food, plates and silverware, and everything else needed for the celebration. Spencer was also glad to see that Penelope had put candles on JJ's cake, too.
"All right, kids, let's eat," Will called out to where Jack and Henry were both on the climbing net. "You, too, Morgan!"
Spencer looked around and saw Morgan and Clooney loping towards them. He tensed, but they were too far away from the car for him to reach it before Clooney would get him. Nor were there any trees with low branches that he could climb. The best he could hope for would be to get on Hotch's shoulders then persuade the man to get up on the picnic bench. Fortunately, however, Morgan tied Clooney to a tree before coming to the table, and Spencer relaxed again.
After they'd eaten, Will and Penelope lit the candles on the cake while Jack counted them and announced loudly, "Are you thirty four, Aunt JJ?"
"I sure am," she replied.
"Wow," he said. "Do you need help blowing out the candles? Because I'm really good at it!"
"Aww, thanks, Jack, you're sweet, but I'm not so old that I can't do it myself."
They sang the happy birthday song, and then JJ puffed all her candles out with just a little help from Henry, who had snuck up between her and Will and started blowing even before the song was over. Everybody laughed, and Garcia cut the cake, handing the first piece to the birthday girl. Spencer was pleased to notice that Henry had grown out of his possessive stage and did not make a grab for it. Garcia also helped stave off disaster by giving Henry the next piece, and the next one after that to Will. When Spencer finally got his piece, he had to agree with everybody else; it was delicious.
Once they were finished eating, Jack said, "Come on, Spencer, let's play!"
Spencer really wanted to sit and talk with the other adults, but Jack had devised a game that involved him and Spencer swinging plastic swords at each other while swarming over the various parts of the climbing tower. Resigned, Spencer took his sword and did his best to parry Jack's random attacks. Henry had put his Cat plushie in the wagon and was pulling it around the climbing structure, narrating a kind of adventure to himself that involved him stopping every so often and taking the Cat down the slide or doing something else, then going back for another round.
A boy and a girl came towards the playground, brandishing sticks and inserting themselves into Jack's game by shouting, "Salute, Sword-Swingers!"
With other Cat-fans there for Jack to interact with, Spencer thought it might be a good chance for him to get back to the picnic table, and lowered his plastic sword. The girl whacked it out of his hand with her branch and it sailed over the guard rail of the hanging bridge to land on the grass nearby.
"Hey!" Spencer exclaimed, and they both ran to it, but the girl was closer, and snatched it up.
"May I have it back, please?" Spencer asked.
"I want to play with it now," she insisted, and proceded to whack Spencer on the shoulder with it. "Evil will not triumph to-day, you mangy ferret!"
Spencer made a grab for the sword, but missed, and the girl swung it at his head, knocking his glasses askew. As he pushed them back to rights, he said, "Come on, give it back, it belongs to Jack over there, and if you want to play with it, you have to ask him first. But actually, I'm sure you've got enough imagination to pretend that your stick is a sword."
"But I want a real sword!"
"Oh, give it back to the poor kid," her brother shouted. The girl made a face, then threw the sword as high into the air as she could. It landed on the peaked roof of the octagonal tower between the hanging bridge and the huge net, slid down a bit, and stopped just short of falling off again.
"Go and get it, if you want it so bad," the girl said, and marched off. Spencer sighed and went back up the climbing structure, got up on the guard rail of the bridge, and transferred himself carefully to the roof. It wasn't that high, or that steep, and he was able to work his way around to where the sword was laying, only to have it snatched away just as he extended his fingers. Shocked, he looked up to see Jack coming from the other direction, and lost his balance.
Spencer flailed for one terrifying moment, and then next thing he knew, he had slammed into the side wall of Henry's wagon and he was screaming because his right arm hurt, hurt, HURT.
JJ was there first, and then Hotch, both of them hovering, lifting him up, touching him, and he screamed some more. "My arm, I think I broke my arm!"
"That doesn't look good," Hotch said, and then Will was there, too. "Here's an ice pack. Spencer, can you lay your arm carefully on top of this? It'll feel better."
Spencer screamed again as Will brought the ice pack up to the broken spot. Turning his head, Hotch said, "Jack, get the swords, we have to take Spencer to the ER."
"Jack, do you want to stay with us?" JJ offered. "You can play with Henry instead of sitting around in the boring waiting room."
"I wanna stay with Spencer," Jack said. "And Dad!"
"Of course you want to be with your family, little man," Will said and JJ confirmed it. "That's fine, Jack, I just thought I'd offer."
"I'm sorry for – for ruining your – your birthday, JJ," Spencer wailed, and JJ stroked his head with one hand. "It's okay, Spencer, my birthday's not ruined. The picnic was pretty much over, anyway. You just get better, okay?"
With Hotch's help, Spencer managed to walk slowly to the car, whimpering as each step jarred his arm. He could only grunt a response to everybody in the team who wished him a speedy and painless recovery.
Their stay in the ER seemed all the more long and tedious because Spencer couldn't hold a magazine to read or even focus on much of anything while they waited to be seen. It was another busy day, and again, there weren't enough chairs to go around, so he sat miserably on Hotch's lap in the waiting room. After a while, it occurred to him that his one-year anniversary of being de-aged was coming up in only two months, and he wondered if Hotch was going to bring up the subject of adoption if there hadn't been any word from SHIELD by then. As much as he liked being with Hotch and Jack, consenting to be adopted into their family would be tantamount to admitting he'd never be re-aged and would have to let his body grow up again. It was a depressing thought, but then the vibrations of his phone brought him back to the present.
"Hotch, my phone is ringing, can you get it out for me?" he asked, standing up.
"Sure, buddy." Hotch wriggled the phone out of Spencer's pocket, then put it into Spencer's left hand. They both ignored the disapproving gazes of the other people waiting nearby.
Without checking the caller, Spencer put the phone to his ear and said, "This is Spencer Reid."
"Hello, Dr Reid, it's Dr Kapoor here, do you remember me?" the man asked.
"Yes, I remember," Spencer said, straightening up in eager expectation.
"I wanted to talk to you about the effects of pointillism on Project Mustardseed," Dr Kapoor went on.
"Didn't that get cancelled?" Spencer asked.
"Officially, yes. Unofficially – can you come to the SHIELD base?"
"Right now?" The pain of his arm faded instantly away as hope shot through him. "Is it finished? Does it work?"
"Yes to both questions. Well, on pigs, anyway."
"Hotch, we have to go to SHIELD right away," Spencer said, and Jack perked up, too. "SHIELD? Where Captain America lives?"
"SHIELD?" Hotch asked, too.
"The machine," Spencer said, almost too excited to explain. "They've finished it! It works! We have to go right now!"
"What machine?" Jack asked.
"Tell them about your arm," Hotch said.
"Oh, yeah." Spencer turned back to his phone. "Dr Kapoor, I just broke my arm and we're in the waiting room at the ER. Should we wait for the X-rays, or come straight over and hope that the machine will do everything necessary?
"
"You broke your arm?" Dr Kapoor asked, and Spencer could hear a distinct note of disappointment in his voice. "Oh. Well. I'm not sure …" Although he turned his head away from the phone, Spencer clearly heard him yelling, "We're gonna need another pig!"
Then he addressed Spencer again. "Don't come yet. Get your arm checked out, and I'll call you back to-morrow after we've done more tests."
"To-morrow?" Spencer slumped in renewed depression and the pain returned with more intensity. "Oh. Okay."
A nurse came through and announced his name, and Spencer hung up, then handed his phone to Hotch for him to hold. He was examined and sent for X-rays, then had to wait for the doctor to come back and interpret them. Finally, the older man came in, studied, the pictures, then indicated the ulna of his own arm and said, "Looks like you broke this bone pretty good, son, and the edges are just a little bit out of alignment. See here on the picture how this piece sticks out there, and that piece sticks out here?"
"Yes," said Spencer. With his left index finger, he pointed to the picture of his radius. "This looks cracked, too."
"Good eyes! Yes, but that hasn't gone all the way through and it's still as straight as it should be. But with the other bone here, I'll need to move the broken pieces so that they form a straight line again. I think I can do that without having to operate. I'll give you a shot first, and that will hurt a little, but it'll make it so it won't hurt when I'm moving the bones, okay?"
"Okay," Spencer said. When the nurse came in with the prepared syringe on a tray, Spencer reached out with his left hand for Hotch, and held on tightly. He also watched closely as the doctor sprayed the area with antiseptic, then positioned the needle and poked it gently into the middle of the hematoma that had formed directly over the break. As predicted, it hurt enough to make Spencer cry out, but eventually, the doctor removed the needle.
"You can open your eyes now, Jack, it's over," Hotch said, and Spencer saw that Jack had scrunched up his face and closed his eyes as though it were happening to him. When Jack opened his eyes again and saw that the doctor was putting the syringe away, he looked more relieved than Spencer felt.
"You've probably seen other kids wearing a cast on a broken arm or broken leg, and maybe you've written your name on some of them, but we're going to put a splint on you for now," the doctor said. Spencer didn't tell him that nobody had ever asked him to sign their cast.
"The splint won't be firm enough for anybody to sign, and it'll hurt if they try," the doctor went on. "So don't let them. The splint is because your arm will swell up a little and that needs some space. And because we'll want to check the bone again to make sure it's healing all right, and it's easier to take a splint off than to cut through a hard cast. So, you'll go see your regular doctor on Thursday and they can take another X-ray, and then they'll get you a cast that all your friends can sign. You can probably even pick out your favourite colour. Okay?"
"I don't think they'll have lavender," Spencer said.
"Well, they might have purple, is that close enough?"
Spencer shrugged with his left shoulder. "Yeah, I guess."
"So, tell me again how you broke it?" the doctor asked, and Spencer told him about falling off the climbing frame and landing on the wagon.
"Well, I've seen a lot people fall off the wagon, but very few fall onto one," the doctor said, and Spencer grinned at the joke. Hotch even smiled, too, but Jack just looked confused.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," the doctor said, and went out. But it was more than a few minutes before he came back to check that the anaesthetic was working and finally said, "Well, let's get this all straightened out, then."
He manipulated the bones, but although Spencer felt them moving, he didn't feel any pain.
"There, I think that's got it," the doctor said. He and the nurse fitted a splint onto Spencer's arm and gave him a sling as well. When they'd finished, the doctor wrote out a prescription for a painkiller.
"This is for acetaminophen with codeine," he told Hotch, and Spencer jerked at the reference to the opiate.
After they'd left the hospital but before they got in the car, Spencer said, "Hotch, I don't want that painkiller. Just plain ibuprofen would be better."
"Why?" Hotch asked, and then he remembered, "Oh, because of the codeine? Sure, buddy, if that's what you want."
"Dad, what's codeine?" Jack asked.
"It's a kind of painkiller, Jack."
"I had some problems with it before," Spencer explained. "So it's better if I don't take it now."
"Oh."
He didn't think he could get addicted again, not with his younger body, but even the merest thought of taking it worried him.
As they started to drive, Jack asked excitedly, "Are we going to SHIELD, Dad? Can we see Captain America while we're there?"
"We're not going to SHIELD, we're going to the pharmacy to get some medicine for Spencer," Hotch replied.
"I thought Spencer said we had to go to SHIELD right now. You said that, didn't you, Spencer?"
"I said that, but then I found out I was wrong."
"Why were you wrong?" Jack wasn't letting it drop.
Spencer scrambled mentally for an explanation that Jack would believe. "Well, I thought they wanted me to help them test something, but then I told them about my broken arm, and they didn't want me to come in after all."
"What did they want you to test?"
"A special kind of machine." At least that was the truth, if not all of it.
"Can I help test it, too?"
"No, I don't think either of us can now."
"But I don't have a broken arm! I could do it!"
"Sorry, buddy, but they haven't asked you," Hotch said, pulling into a parking lot and finding a space.
"That's not fair," Jack said.
"Life isn't always fair," Hotch responded. "How about we get that medicine for Spencer and then some ice cream that we can eat at home, hmm?"
"Strawberry!" Jack exclaimed.
"Chocolate!" Spencer called.
"Maybe we should get Neapolitan, then," Hotch suggested, and opened the car door.
Part 26
Part 24
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