✓ | sick of losing soulmates [SPENCER REID]

5.1

"Hey," a soothing voice greets. "Welcome back."

Her eyes flutter open and blink a few times, clearing her vision so she can focus on the bright white light hovering straight about her. She has to squint against it, like she's at the dentist, but it's a struggle to do even that; each and every limb feels like jelly and her head feels airy, as if she's wrapped up in a dizzying lightness.

"Am I dead?" she breathes.

"No," a voice laughs out softly. "But you are on a lot of drugs."

Yeah, it sure feels like it. Her blood feels like liquid gold, heavy and thick in her veins, making every movement feel heavy and wobbly at the same time. Like that scene in Harry Potter where he loses the bones in his arm, she thinks idly.

Iris winces, tilting her head to the side, and blinks again until her vision clears and focuses like a camera. Her mind tries to work, tries to figure out where she is and what's going on and what happened before she fell asleep, but it's almost as if it's turned to sludge.

But she does recognise the person sat beside her: Emily.

She's smiling tentatively, leaning on the edge of Iris' mattress, picking idly at a loose thread in the cotton sheets. There's a window behind her head, sunlight streaming through, making the edge of her black hair fuzzy. Or maybe that's just Iris and the haze of her deep sleep that's still clinging to her brain.

"What's going on?" Iris asks.

"You're in hospital," Emily says, smile fading. "Are you okay? Are you in a lot pain?"

"My brain feels like a slushie."

"No difference there, then," Emily jokes, but it's half-hearted. Suddenly, she swallows harshly, throat bobbing and eyes wincing; her face grows abruptly somber, more serious, making Iris' heart pick up speed. Or, rather, it would pick up speed, if the drugs in her veins allowed it. "Do you remember what happened to you before you came here?"

A forgotten memory, an instinct, makes Iris flinch, her eyes closing.

Images flood her mind: first it's Spencer shouting her name, then back to the paramedic above her, and then back to Morgan telling her not to look down, then back to the bomb-blast and Garcia's phone call and the stolen ambulance.

She tilts her face away from Emily, writhing back into the pillows, as her eyes sting with oncoming tears. "Shit," she curses, because, yeah, shit. There's no other word in the English language to convey how she feels, other than that one.

"I'm sorry," Emily says, and the sadness, the defeat, in her voice shows she means it with every fibre of her being. She exhales, standing. "Spencer called your mom. She's on her way from Maine now."

Iris nods, but she's pretty sure even the presence of her mom couldn't reassure now.

Emily shuffles a little closer, squeezing Iris' wrist again. "Why didn't you come to me?" she murmurs. "You and Morgan... Why didn't you--" She cuts herself off, inhaling sharply, and mumbles something to herself. Iris barely manages to catch the words, So new.

"What, come to you so you can be the one who gets blown up?" Iris asks, but when Emily looks at her with big, dark eyes and her face set in such an expression of earnest, Iris suddenly knows that she's exactly right: that's exactly what Emily would prefer. Iris before herself, apparently.