lullabies through the window

Epilogue

Five Years Later

Spencer smiled at his team. They never failed to make him feel better. 

He was sitting in a chair while the team stood around him, and smiling and singing him happy birthday. Today he turned 33 years old.

The song is short, only taking twenty seconds for a dramatic crowd to sing... such as the BAU. Twenty short seconds, and the team was somehow able to remember and think over the last five years. 

JJ videoed Spencer, and thought back to how he admitted to a suicide attempt that never happened. And what the doctor had said to them that same night.

"We don't know why, but he's convinced that this Emily never came back. He's somehow been convinced that the time after she came back was all some dream state or hallucination. He thinks he hasn't woken up. We don't know what could have convinced him of this. Do you know if he or a family member been diagnosed with schizophrenia?"

Rossi sang with gusto, and smiled back at the young doctor when they met eyes. He remembered the doctor leaving, and Morgan telling them about the drug Amber mentioned, and his restrained outburst. 

"She said that Margot dosed him with something. Right when she first found us downstairs. That's what paralysed him. But SWAT also found traces of mixed hallucinogenics at that hospital he was held at. Did they drug him so bad that... I don't know. 

It's too bad that-- that she's dead. If we couldn't get the answers from her, I could at least kill her myself."

Penelope grinned at Spencer from across the table as she sang, and was reminded of speaking to Spencer's psychiatrist a few months after he was saved.

"He told me everything that happened over the last year in what he calls his "dream" and sometimes his "nightmare". It matches up with the list of events that you all gave me. He simply doesn't believe that it ever happened. He thinks talking to me about it will wake him up. But I can't convince him that he was never dreaming."

Hotch remembered the doctor meeting them almost a year after they had saved Spencer from Amber. 

"He isn't making any progress, if anything, he's only getting worse. I'm very sorry, agents, but he's not getting better. Have you considered sending him to live with family, or retiring him to a sanitarium?"

Morgan watched his little brother smile awkwardly, and remembered what his mother had said when they told her that they were being forced to move her son into Bennington Sanitarium with her. 

"What did you do to my son? He was all I had left, he deserves so much better... My son, my only son... my baby genius... you've ruined him, he-- he never wanted to become like me. His worst fear was to end up like me-- Agent Morgan, Spencer told me I could trust him, and by extension, I could trust you. He said you were good at your job-- that you were his best friend-- he said he would be fine, and his team had his back if anything went wrong. Look at you. You've given him up to his greatest fear. Look what you've done to my son."

And Emily Prentiss. While her team was in Las Vegas visiting Spencer, she was at her apartment in Quantico. She remembered five years ago, watching Spencer in his hospital bed, as he stared her down and swore she was dead. How he went insane because of a hallucination of her that told him he was already insane. 

"Funny how things go full circle." She thought, sipping a glass of watered down whiskey. She hadn't yet decided if she wanted to get drunk.

Refilling her glass, she remembered a doctor speaking to her after Spencer had been sent to Bennington Sanitarium. 

"Sometimes, he has a good day, and we can convince him he isn't hallucinating. Or he sees that he's in a sanitarium, and thinks that he's woken up. But your presence makes him panic. I'm sorry, Agent Prentiss, but I think it's best if you don't visit him."

"Ever?"

"I'm sorry Agent Prentiss."

Emily's phone pinged. A message from JJ, with a video attachment. 

"Missing you. I'm so sorry you can't be here." 

She opened the video, and watched the team sing happy birthday to Spencer at his home of the last five years: Bennington Sanitarium. 

Spencer was smiling. 

She hadn't seen Spencer in person in five years.

"Happy birthday, Spencer." She whispered.

The recording ended.

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