north//spencer reid

chapter sixteen

genre: angst

warnings: prison, stabbing, solitary confinement, mention of deaths

word count: 3.2k

summary: spencer is spiraling. amelia is too. being apart is weighing on them and hope has run out.

pairing: season 12 spencer reid x oc

no extra authors note for today. enjoy :) vote and comment!! they mean a lot

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SPENCER

Guilt is a feeling I'm far too familiar with. Guilt is something I can't escape and guilt is something that has run my life. Guilt always seems to follow me wherever I go like a black cloud floating over my head.

I always thought that strong panic could easily outweigh guilt, but clearly, I've learned my lesson. As I hear the coughs and cries and screams of agony from the other prisoners on my cell block, the panic settles in my body.

Rossi told me I was a good person. He swore I wouldn't be changed by these people and this place and he was wrong. He was so utterly and horribly wrong and I know if he ever finds out about this, he would be so disappointed in me.

And Amelia. My beautiful, sweet, innocent girl. What if she found out about this? What if she finds out that I purposely poisoned a batch of drugs? What would she think? Would she hate me? Would she leave me? I'm barely surviving prison but I wouldn't survive her leaving me. I could never survive life without her.

But I'm doing what I can survive. But I had a million ways out of this situation. I had a million ways to get myself out of moving those drugs and instead any of those other simpler, cleaner, easier ways, I chose to poison them. I chose the way that would cause pain and suffering for those who have wronged me, and I unintentionally chose pain and suffering for the one person who has helped me out in here. And now that Shaw is gone and off to the infirmary, what's going to happen to me? Now that my protection is gone, am I at risk again?

But then the panic starts to dissipate. The panic dissipates and all I feel this guilt. Overwhelming, suffocating guilt. I feel horrible. I feel like the worst person to walk planet earth. I am the worst person to walk the planet. I watch all these men get rushed onto gurneys and run down hallways on the arms of correctional officers and it makes my heart sink.

I'm officially one of them. I didn't even want to move the drugs. I was so adamant about not allowing this contraband to be distributed to the inmates and I did everything I could to not have to move them, but I got pushed against the wall and held down, literally and figuratively. I had no choice.

And just when I don't need it, Tara shows up. She shows up, waving her doctorate degree in the air, telling me that we need to do another cognitive. Another cognitive. Another cognitive. She needs to dive into my mangled brain yet again to figure out what happened in Mexico just twenty-four hours after I poisoned half of my cell block. Another cognitive could help with Stephen's new way of finding Scratch. What is that new way? She didn't even say. I don't even want to know.

But it's something to do. It's something to distract from the guilt that's eating me alive. It's something to distract me from the things I think when I'm in my cell. It's something to distract me from the images of Malcolm shaking on the floor or Delgado bleeding out. It's something.

But even though it's something, the pain is there. The pain of Mexico resurfaces and hits me tenfold. The pain beats me against my chest and bolts me to my chair, stinging the scar on my hand. This isn't what I need. I didn't need to be reminded of my trauma as more trauma is unfolding before my eyes.