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The entire house was supposed to be cleared.
Along with SWAT, the BAU cleared every room. Though apparently, not good enough.
Spencer has his gun holstered once again, and was in the process of pulling nitrile gloves on, when a sudden chunk of wood is slammed against the side of his head.
He falls down like a sack of bricks on a high gravity planet, but narrowly avoids losing consciousness. He tries to twist onto his back, and shouts out, “Hotch!” loud enough for his own ears to ring.
Spencer meets the eyes of his attacker, and they’re wild and unseeing. Spencer’s pretty sure that the unsub can’t tell if Spencer is real or a delusion. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop him from bringing down the plank of wood on his stomach and chest over, and over, and over again.
There’s thudding feet, a quick bang, and a splatter of warm blood over Spencer’s front, until the body falls on Spencer’s own. The unsub is dead before his body hits Spencer’s chest, but the young agent can’t move fast enough to move out of the way.
Hands are pulling the body off of Spencer, and he’s able to choke out a few breaths.
“Reid? Reid!”
Spencer blinks up, seeing Hotch’s face, contorted in fear.
Turning his head to the open door, he shouts out, “I need backup!” Before facing his subordinate once again, scanning him for injuries. “Reid, what hurts?”
Swallowing, he answers, “Head. Chest.” The simple words take all of his energy, and he has to gasp to get enough oxygen in. Unfortunately, that just makes the pain worse.
Hotch turns him on his side, and Spencer can almost breathe easier.
Rossi and Morgan reach the room first, both holstering their weapons once they take in the scene in front of them. Morgan kneels next to his brother, while Rossi questions, “Aaron, what the hell happened?”
Without taking his eyes off of Spencer, Hotch answers, “Granger was here the entire time. He blitzed Reid I think.”
“Is the blood his?” Morgan asks, face scrunched up with worry.
“No, It’s Granger’s,” Hotch quickly supplies. “I shot him in the head. Call for an ambulance. Now.”
Before anyone can answer, JJ’s worried voice enters from the door frame. “Spence? Oh, God,”
“‘M fine,” Spencer mutters, still breathing ridiculously shallow.
Ignoring him, Hotch attempts to help Spencer sit up. “Morgan, can you?”
The other man quickly moves to Spencer’s side, helping Hotch support him.
“Reid, you need to take some deep breaths,” Hotch instructs, putting a supporting hand on the small of his back.
Shaking his head, Spencer answers, “Can’t. This is as deep as I can- shit. ”
“Medics are over thirty minutes out,” Rossi states, looking just as worried as the other agents in the room.
“Reid?” Morgan questions, eyes trying to find Spencer’s shut ones.
Quickly making an executive decision, Hotch declares, “We can make it to the hospital faster than the ambulance. Let’s move.”
Spencer eyes open in fear of moving, but he doesn’t have much of a choice at this point.
Morgan and Hotch hook Spencer’s shoulders over their own, and slowly stand up, trying their best to block out his pained whines. They take slow step after slow step, even though all Spencer wants to do is curl up and block out all of the pain in his midsection. Fortunately, he has Morgan and Hotch to take most of his weight.
“Rossi,” Hotch starts, looking thoroughly pissed off at the world for hurting his youngest agent, “How close can you get the car?”
With a grimace the older profiler answers, “Not much closer without it getting stuck. The mud’s real bad around the cottage.”
“Shit.”
Spencer shows his agreement with that statement with a whimper.
Morgan keeps his left hand holding Spencer’s arm over his shoulder, but uses his right to keep the younger man’s back sturdy. “‘You ready for the porch?” He asks, glaring daggers at the four wooden steps.
Not daring to chance a response, Spencer just nods.
“Just let us do all the work, Pretty Boy,” Morgan instructs.
His chest burns like a fire has been ignited along his sternum, but Spencer makes it down the four steps. Now all that’s left is a painful hike through slipper mud.
To be fair, he does manage to make it ten steps, before the tip of his converse gets caught on a rock, and he sags down in pain. Already prepared for something like this to happen, Morgan and Hotch keep him standing, albeit precariously.
“Reid?” Hotch questions, looking at his glassy eyes.
His response is a simple, “Nggh,” Before he attempts to clear his throat, “Hotch?”
“Oh, fuck.” Morgan hisses, looking to Hotch for advice.
Spencer’s eyes furrow, and he asks, “What?” Before he awkwardly coughs, and feels blood tickle the back of his throat. “Oh,” He murmurs. “Tha’s not good.”
“Morgan, give him to me,”
“What?”
“We can move faster if I just carry him.”
Morgan takes a quick breath in, before agreeing with a nod. He wraps Spencer’s arms around Hotch’s neck, preparing for the change in position.
With a sturdy grip, Hotch counts down, “One, two, three,” Before crouching to grab the back of Spencer’s knees. Morgan helps push up Spencer’s body until he’s fully in Hotch’s arms, a bit of blood running down the bottom of his chin.
Spencer painfully groans at the new position, broken ribs poking his fragil insides.
“Sorry,” Hotch quietly apologizes, before starting up a jog to the car.
With each footfall, Spencer whimpers, grabbing the back of Hotch’s neck even tighter. Every jolt sends tendrils of pain through Spencer’s midsection, and after only a few seconds it feels like he’s been set on fire.
Hotch runs faster.
By the time they make it to the black, government grade SUV, Spencer is whimpering, eyes clenched shut with tears leaking out.
“Rossi or Morgan drive,” Hotch insists, knowing both of their driving tendencies. “Get to town as fast as you possibly can.” He adds, laying Spencer’s lanky body down in the back seat. He then looks to the female agents and requests, “I need you to stay at the scene for the LEOs-”
“Hotch,” JJ angrily starts, before she’s cut off.
“Reid’s going to be fine. I need someone at the scene.”
Emily looks rightfully pissed off, but suffices with a “Drive fast,” to Morgan.
And Morgan does. He presses his foot all of the way down to the floor of the car, weaving between vehicles that don’t get off the damned road when his sirens are on. Rossi murmurs obscenities under his breath every time Spencer lets out a pained groan, and spends the entire car ride with his neck twisted around to keep an eye on the back seat.
Morgan is shooting down the highway when Spencer blinks a few times, before gulping, “‘Otch?”
The unit chief replies instantaneously replies, “Don’t try and talk, Reid. We’re gonna get you to the hospital and you’re going to be fine,”
Spencer awkwardly tries to shake his head before choking out, “‘Breathe,”
Hotch’s eyes grow wild from fear. “Reid, can you breathe?”
“Move out of the fucking way! ” Morgan shouts from the driver’s seat, honking alongside the sirens.
As a response, Spencer just closes his eyes in a grimace. He tries to take a breath, but something inside prevents him from doing so. All he’s able to get out is a few rattled gasps, and he can feel blood dot the inside of his mouth.
“Reid, I need you to try and breathe,” Hotch instructs, voice giving away his anxiety. “Reid?”
Spencer tries to nod, but his body just feels so lethargic. Even the automatic response of inflating his lungs feels like too much work at the moment. He’s supposed to be able to do this task naturally, but his body doesn’t feel like complying right now. Spencer has to keep reminding himself to breathe in, even as his body tries to stop it from the pain.
Blood gets caught in his trachea, and out of instinct, his throat convulses, creating a cough.
It’s the worst pain Spencer’s felt in his entire life.
Breathing through anthrax infected lungs was easier than this.
Someone’s hands are on his head, tilting it up, when all Spencer wants to do is curl into a small ball and ignore the pain radiating from his midsection.
“Reid, you need to breathe,”
Spencer doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but he opens them to find Hotch’s anxious ones. Now that he’s been reminded to do so, Spencer makes his lungs expand.
The world goes dark.
Spencer doesn’t think that he’s unconscious, but it’s difficult to tell. He can’t see anything around him, and the only thing he can feel are his insides. He swears he could touch each individual fiber of his muscles, everything is amplified.
Occasionally he can hear a few swimming voices, but he doesn’t recognize any of them. They could be his own voice, for all he knows.
Spencer tries to reach out past the darkness, but he can’t even tell if his arms are moving. He has no control over his body anymore. That fact doesn’t scare him as much as he thinks it should.
At some point, he hears more voices drifting in and out, and he thinks that someone touches his arm, but Spencer wouldn’t bet on it. The touch is simultaneously feather light, while still being as heavy as a brick of cement. His nerves don’t know how to decipher it.
Spencer opens his eyes, only to see darkness. A second later he realizes that he never opened his eyes in the first place. With a mental frown, Spencer tries to force his eyelids open again, but it still doesn’t work. Almost like someone’s glued them down, except they don’t feel sticky. Maybe someone sewed his top and bottom eyelids closed?
He isn’t sure of much anymore.
With sudden clarity, Spencer realizes that his chest doesn’t hurt. For the first time in what must be his entire lifetime, nothing hurts. He feels floaty almost. Like a mental calm, except over his entire living body.
Every single cell is slow and calm, living in a haze.
Spencer tries to open his eyes once again, and this time it almost works. He feels the pull of his muscles, working their damndest to open his fragile eyelids. He stops trying out of surprise when he feels a hand on his own.
He instinctively wants to look down to see who’s holding his hand, but it takes his mind a second to catch up. He’s too weak to open his eyes, let alone move his entire head and neck down. Spencer decides to just lay in sweet peace.
He’s pulled out of his stupor when the hand squeezes.
Determined to figure out who it is, Spencer forces his eyes to open. He makes it to slits before they fall back down. Internally hyping himself up, Spencer tries again. This time, he can see.
Huh. So it’s Morgan who’s holding his hand.
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” Morgan quietly greets. “Hotch, get in here. Look who’s awake,”
“Reid?”
Spencer turns his head further to find who he assumes is Hotch, but only makes it a few inches before something tugs at his head, keeping it straight. Confused at why he would be bound around Morgan, Spencer frowns. His eyes slide down, trying to find his chin, when he feels his heart constrict.
As if his nerves were simply waiting for Spencer to notice, he suddenly feels everything. There’s a horrid plastic pipe shoved unceremoniously down his throat, and it’s secured with sticky tape, pulling at the fragile sides of his mouth. Paired together, everything feels far too itchy, setting his poor skin on fire. With only a single second of thought, Spencer decides that he needs whatever’s on his face to leave.
With newfound strength, Spencer shakes his head from side to side, determined to dislodge the pipe. When that doesn’t work, he attempts to raise his arms to pull it out. Morgan, the traitor that he is, pushes his arms back down.
“Reid, you’re on a respirator, okay? Do you hear me?”
Spencer hears him, but his genius brain can’t make sense of the words. It all just sounds like mumbo jumbo to him.
Hotch’s figure comes closer to him and tries to soothe, “Reid, you’re in the hospital. You’re on a respirator to help you breathe.”
The words float through Spencer’s ear, and go straight out the other end.
And then the floaty feeling is back. His body relaxes, the world melting away.
Spencer’s eyes slip shut, and all of his worries drift away like a balloon in a summer breeze. The thought soothes him, and all his muscles soften into the mattress underneath him. The world isn’t so bad now, is it?
If Spencer had enough energy to do so, he’d sigh in relief. Everything is okay. Everything is going to be okay.
He spends the next long few hours of feeling thoroughly relaxed, like a day at the spa. Internally, he wants to laugh at his own simile. He’s never been to the spa. Although based on Garcia’s claims, he’s sure that it would feel something like this.
Spencer tries his eyes once more. It comes easier this time, and he’s able to open them nearly all of the way.
Hotch is there to greet him, and is talking before Spencer even has time to think for his own. “You’re in the hospital right now, Reid. Everything is okay, and you’re going to be fine.”
Spencer nods, not even knowing what he’s agreeing to. “Hi, ‘otch,” He mumbles, voice exceptionally scratchy.
“Welcome back, Reid.” He smiles. “How are you feeling?”
“Mm. Tired? I think. ‘M not really sure.” Spencer replies honestly.
Nodding, Hotch announces, “You can go back to sleep if you’d like.”
After thinking on it, Spencer replies, “I don’t think I want to. Wha’ happened?”
Hotch sighs. “I’m not exactly sure. I hoped you were going to be able to answer that.”
Spencer absentmindedly nods. “Hmm.”
Despite the feeling that his youngest agent doesn’t really know what’s going on right now, Hotch continues, “We think Granger got the drop on you. When I got there he was beating you with a board of wood. Do you remember that?”
“He thought I was one of his delusions?” Spencer asks with a frown.
“We’re not sure.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes.” Hotch easily supplies. There’s no reason to beat around the bush. “And it isn’t your fault,” He quickly adds, knowing how much Spencer loves to blame bad news on himself. “I shot him in the head.”
Spencer’s eyebrows pinch together. “Unfortunate.”
With a sigh, Hotch nods.
“What happened to my chest?”
“He broke four of your ribs. You aren’t going to be moving around for quite some time.”
“Mmhm.” Spencer muses, eyes beginning to slip shut. “Oh, wait,” With new found strength, he looks back up at Hotch. “Did they get my lungs?”
Hotch gives him a look. “Did who get your lungs?”
“My ribs.”
“One of them nicked your left lung,” Hotch answers, looking like he needs something to punch. “You were in surgery for a few hours.”
With a nod, Spencer acknowledges, “It felt weird.”
“What felt weird? Your ribs?”
“The surgery.” He clarified.
Hotch gives him an alarmed look. “Did you wake up in the middle of surgery? Your doctor said there weren’t any complications,”
Spencer can tell Hotch is only a few moments away from going full lawyer mode on the hospital staff, so he quickly explains, “I wasn’t awake, but I…” He trails off, frowning.
“But you what?”
“But I wasn’t unconscious. Or at least, it didn’t feel like I was unconscious.”
Still not convinced, Hotch questions, “Were you aware of what they were doing?”
With a shake of his head, Spencer answers, “No. I felt nice. Relaxed. It was strange.”
Eventually, Hotch nods. “Sounds strange.”
“Mm. It was.”
“Get some rest, Spencer. You’ve been through a lot the past day.”
“I thought I was unconscious for the past day,”
“You were.” Hotch confirms. “But that doesn’t mean you weren’t working hard the entire time.”
Spencer frowns, but isn’t awake enough to dwell on that fact. “Oh. Okay.”
“Spencer?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to bed,” He instructs with a smile.
Spencer’s asleep within the next few seconds, and Hotch takes a deep sigh. With the amount of trouble his youngest agent gets in on a daily basis, he wonders how he hasn’t developed an aneurysm yet.
Scoffing to himself, he figures it’s only a matter of time.