The Missing |~| Criminal Minds Fanfic-Book 2

*Long Gone*

After a couple of days, most of the team left for Quantico for work. Hotch ordered Morgan and Spencer to stay behind until I was ready to travel.

Which will most likely be awhile.

Machines beep endlessly as the ventilator provide clean air. I stare out of the window to my left as Spencer sit in the corner of the room reading a book with headphones in and Morgan sat beside me.

I hear him sigh again and I still blankly stare, not saying a word.

"Carrie, you have to say something."

The empty feeling sinks lower as my chest aches. My heart bumps weakly as I try my best not to cry.

"I have nothing to say." I spoke grimly, still facing the other way. "I've been going days without sleep, my health decaying, I jumped from a moving car, flatline, heart failure, and this is what I get?" Tears begin to form. "I have no where to live, I have no family, no car, no belongings, no money, and I don't have the one thing I wanted to care about." I face him. "I have nothing."

"Carrie, this isn't your fault. You could always crash at one our places, until you get back on your feet."

"As the look of it, Derek, I'm currently paralyzed."

He gives me a grim look and rolls his eyes. "Look, maybe if you just talk to him, something will have to click."

"Look at him! He doesn't want to talk to me. He doesn't know me. He wants nothing of me." I shift uncomfortably on the lumpy mattress as it presses against my fatigue spine.

"You can't just mope around. He doesn't understand who you are and what you were to him."

"I'm not moping," I quickly shut him down as I spoke the lie right through my teeth. "Processing. I'm processing."

"Carrie, I can easily giving you a book and you would process that under minute. You are not processing, you are in a moping stage."

I rub my lower chest as I wince in pain. "Again, not moping." I lie. "You've never been through this," I look at him with tearing eyes. "You don't know what it is like. To have someone to understand your flaws and still love you. You're happy, then it gets swiped right from under you. It rips your heart, your soul, your mind apart. You are crushed suddenly, because what has become of us is gone and he's acting like he doesn't care. Look at him," We both glance at Spencer and back at each other. "Why should I put in more effort than I will be receiving?"

He licks his lips and sighs. "Are you ashamed at yourself?"

"Ashamed? Sure, but more petrified." My voice quivers. "I'm afraid of what I might do. I might become careless. I won't communicate to anyone, I'll keep to myself. Then silence, the silence is deafening. Your mind starts to brew negative thoughts and one day, I might lose it."

I stare at him as my fingers gently trace the stitches as I sniffle. Heaving in fresh air from the ventilator. I feel the fabric of the brace on under my rib cage as it wraps around towards my back, to keep the vertebrae in place.

There's a soft knock at the door and we all face the door.

The door creaks open and the doctor with a clipboard.

"How are you feeling, Carrie?" The doctor ask as Spencer takes out his headphones.

I run my chest slightly. "Not myself."