𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐇- spencer reid ✔️

𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃. Every night, after falling asleep, she'd dream of herself, back in the house once more. She was still in her outfit from the funeral when she reached the door to the study, and as she pulled it open, her parents laid there, exactly how she'd seen them that fated night. Only in her nightmares, Celia never froze up. She immediately ran into action, running to the phone, only to find it disconnected again. She always felt a burst of hope when she saw a door in the room, a door she never remembered there being. Dream-Celia would run toward the door and pull it open, hoping to find some kind of miracle cure for her parents behind it. However, when Celia opened the door, she would find herself in the study once again, with the same sight before her. No matter how much she cried, no matter how many doors she ran through in an attempt to escape her harsh reality, they were always there, plaguing her mind. Eventually, Celia's mind would take pity on her, and she'd awake in the middle of the night, gasping for air and clutching her chest as though she'd been re-living through that night over and over again. 

Nothing was different this morning when Celia woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. She glanced over at her phone on the nightstand, taking note of the time. 3:48am. She sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the bed, leaning forward so she could rest her head in her hands. All she could do was think about how she wanted it all to just stop. Sleep was supposed to be the time when she was safe, yet all she could do was end up in that goddamned study over and over again. Maybe she never really left in the first place. 

At this point, she knew there was no point going back to sleep, since she'd only be putting herself through the misery of once again finding her parents dead, and being unable to do anything to save them. She shivered when she felt the hardwood floors cold beneath her feet, and grabbed a pair of slippers from her closet before she quietly made her way out of her bedroom. She cringed as she heard the loud creak of her door hinge, hoping that she wouldn't wake anyone else up in the process. She padded down the stairs, using the flashlight on her phone to guide her, even though Celia was fairly confident she could navigate this house blindfolded. She knew exactly which corners of the steps to avoid so they wouldn't creak, and made her way down to the kitchen with ease. 

She grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it up from the fridge. She gulped down the entirety of the glass in one gulp, and wiped the corner of her mouth before filling it up again. Who knew that nightmares made you thirsty as hell? When Celia turned around to head into the living room, she jumped when she saw a figure in the shadows, and the glass in her hand slipped and shattered on the floor just as she prepared herself to fight off the creep in her kitchen. When the shadow stepped into the light of the kitchen, Celia felt a hint of relief upon seeing the familiar face that was her babysitter- sorry, bodyguard. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She seethed, carefully stepping over the puddle filled with shards of glass. Her lip curled in disgust, and when she caught sight of the gun in his hands, her entire body went rigid. "And why do you have a gun? Were you planning on shooting me, Agent?"

"Doctor," he corrected quietly under his breath. "And no, I was not going to shoot you. I heard noises and thought that someone was breaking into the house. It's three in the morning, Celia, why are you even awake?"

"I couldn't sleep," she responded defensively. "Why are you awake?"

"I never went to sleep. I was going over some case files."

Case files. That was what her life was to him; some tragedy that he'd read about in a manilla folder. To him, Celia wasn't a real person who just experienced loss. To him, she was a victim, a damsel who needed to be saved from the big scary monster who was threatening her entire family.