north//spencer reid

chapter thirty

only about three or four chapters left!! i edited this in my music theory class so. rip to my music skills.

shoutout to my lovely readers who keep commenting and keep giving me love. you're the reason i'm motivated to get these chapters out so fast <3 and shoutout to the amazing reader who left a comment on my board. i appreciate you so much.

as always, please vote and comment!!

genre: angst
pairing: season fourteen spencer reid x oc
word count: 10k
warnings: panic, handcuffs, drugging, mentions of death and child abuse. if I miss anything please let me know!
summary: amelia in the hospital, doing what she can to stay in reality.

SPENCER

The chairs in hospital waiting rooms are, by the far, the most uncomfortable place to ever sit. The chairs are sharp and never have any padding and are often an ugly, non-soothing color. And every time I find myself trapped in one of these chairs, I swear to myself that it would be the last time I endure this type of torture. I always close my eyes and tell myself that this will be the last time I make myself sit and hold back tears as I wonder if my loved one is going to survive, if they're even going to make it out the doors of the hospital.

But now it's completely different. Sure, in the past, I've had to wait for hours through surgeries for my best friends and coworkers. But those were surgeries that I could run numbers and statistics on to calm myself and tell myself that they would survive and be back to work in a few weeks.

Amelia didn't even need surgery. That's not the kind of torture she endured. She wasn't sliced open or shot or even physically injured too badly. But Amelia not being in surgery, in a way, is so much worse. I have no statistics to comfort me and to calculate. She fell unconscious in the ambulance and then she was rushed away from me when we arrived at the hospital, and the nurses have refused to tell me any information, no matter how many times I harass them and no matter how many times I remind them that I'm her boyfriend and her emergency contact and I'm an FBI agent who demands to know what her condition is. They just tell me she is seeing a doctor and they will give me an update soon. But it's been hours upon hours upon hours and I haven't heard a peep. I've just sat and stared at the floor and tried to forget Amelia's echoing screams and horrified face when we tried to rescue her. It's just another haunting image that will plague my brain for the rest of my days.

"She's gonna be okay."

I tuck my head in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut as I hunch over, the chair creaking under my weight. "I don't know. I don't know. I mean– I just– you saw–"

"Yeah, Spence, I did see her," JJ murmurs, slipping into the chair beside me. "She was–" she hesitates, and her uncertainty wafts through the empty waiting room, assaulting my senses in the most horrifying way possible, "yeah, she was really psychologically messed up. But physically, she was okay. She's not even in surgery. She's getting patched up. She won't even be in ICU."

"JJ, she screamed at me and pushed me away. Kelsey made her believe that we were all killed the same way her mother and brother were. She's not gonna be able to recover from this." I completely collapse into myself, my body trembling and my arms wrapping around my head, trying to shut out the world around me, even JJ.

"That's not true," she whispers, not allowing me to do the one thing I want. She won't leave me alone. And as badly as I wish she would get up and leave me alone in the waiting room again, I can't lie when I say that her presence is somewhat helpful and comforting. "She just needs help determining what is real or not. Penelope helped her do that and–"

"But Penelope can't just move in with her or I can't just call her over every time Amelia has a panic attack. I can't– we can't–"

"No, Spence, that's not practical. But when you were having trouble readjusting to life after prison, Amelia paid attention to what helped you, and she figured out ways to help you. We all saw it when you had that moment with Luke at Rossi's dinner party. She knew exactly what to do to help."