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The BAU team often spent their non-working weekends at Aaron Hotchner’s house. He and his wife, Haley, owned a sizable piece of land that lead back into a grove of trees with a 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom house situated a little back from the road and an in-ground pool in the backyard. It was by this pool that the team, plus Haley and 3-year-old Jack, were situated after a particularly tough case that took a toll on all of them.
Derek Morgan and Hotch were in the shallow end of the pool playing with Jack, who was splashing and squealing in delight. Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia, David Rossi, Spencer Reid, and Haley were all in lawn chairs surrounding the pool, lounging, talking, and laughing with each other.
Spencer, as per usual, was the only one not wearing swimming clothes (because he had no intention of getting into the water). He was instead adorned in khaki pants rolled up to his knees and a forest green tank top. He had an open book on his lap but he wasn’t really paying it any attention, however, as he listened to JJ, Emily, and Garcia exchanging amusing anecdotes about their childhood and adolescence. He had a smile on his face but he remained silent, not adding to the conversation because he honestly didn’t have many happy memories from that particular time in his life.
He was so caught up in what the girls were saying that he didn’t notice Derek climbing out of the pool and walking silently over to him. He jumped and let out a strangled scream when he felt a wet hand touch his arm.
Everyone burst out laughing at this except for Spencer, who put his hand over his heart and was trying to calm himself down.
“What’s the matter, pretty boy?” Derek asked teasingly as he patted Spencer on the arm. “It’s just me! Or were you expecting someone else? The creature from the Black Lagoon, maybe?”
Another round of laughter echoed through the small group of people, but Spencer just sneered up at Derek, his eyes glaring and his body tense. “Oh, HA HA, you’re so funny,” he said mockingly as he reached down and slammed his book shut. “Don’t do that again!”
“Do what again?” Derek asked innocently, holding his hands up in surrender, a smirk on his face.
“Don’t scare me!” Spencer answered, becoming more annoyed at Derek’s seemingly incessant picking. It was bad enough that he did it at work, did he have to do it on their time off as well? Even after almost four years of working with the team, Spencer still didn’t really understand why they felt the need to scare, embarrass, or pick on him almost constantly (although a part of him couldn’t help but be happy that a person like Derek Morgan was actually giving him the time of day in the first place). He reached up to wipe the water off his shoulder with a disgusted look on his face. “And don’t touch me when you’re wet!”
“Oh, don’t touch you, huh?” Derek said as his smile grew. He then stepped forward and grabbed Spencer’s forearms. “Like this?”
Spencer tried to struggle away from Derek’s arms, but Derek just clamped down harder. “Yes, like that! I don’t particularly like the water!” Spencer all but squealed as he continued to struggle in vain.
“You don’t like the water?” Derek rhetorically asked, his eyes flashing with humor. “Well, maybe I’ll just have to teach you to like the water, desert boy.” Derek then used his hold on Spencer’s arms to quickly lift him up and over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?!” Spencer asked, his voice high and squeaky with fear. He kicked his feet against Derek’s chest and pounded his fists against Derek’s back, but Derek had a firm hold on him. “Put me down!”
“Put you down? Well, ok, if that’s what you want,” Derek said in mock resignation as he started to walk over toward the edge of the pool.
Spencer’s eyes widened and he started to panic, his breaths coming in harsh gasps as his heart hammered in his chest. “Please don’t, Derek,” he quietly begged, his voice slightly hoarse from fear. When Derek didn’t stop walking or put him down, however, his voice gained strength until he practically screamed, “Put me down! Please! You don’t understand! I can’t – I can’t –”
“I know, you can’t stand water,” Derek interrupted, stopping right in front of the pool’s 9-foot deep end. “Well a pool party’s not a pool party unless everyone gets wet!”
Spencer whimpered slightly and closed his eyes. “Please put me down,” he begged one last time, hoping that his friend could hear his distress.
Unfortunately, Derek and everyone else seemed to be somewhat oblivious and only thought Spencer was whining and complaining like he did whenever he didn’t want to do something.
“You asked for it!” Derek said loudly and before Spencer even had time to hold his breath, he was being flung into the middle of the pool.
Spencer flailed his arms and legs in a desperate attempt to stay afloat but nothing worked as his skinny frame slowly sunk to the bottom. He kept his mouth closed for as long as he could, trying to fight the urge to inhale as his chest burned from lack of oxygen. Somewhere in his brain, he knew that he’d only been submerged for less than a minute, but not having time to suck in breath before hitting the water combined with him not being able to hold his breath for very long anyway made it seem like he’d been in the pool for hours.
His head started to become fuzzy and a loud ringing grew in his ears. His flailing limbs started to lose strength as he felt his backside hit the bottom of the pool. The last thing he remembered before his vision grew dark was his body giving into the temptation to breathe. He sucked in a lung-full of water and choked, desperately hoping that the people he considered his friends wouldn’t just leave him to die.
Everyone saw as Derek threw Spencer into the pool with a big splash and slightly chuckled at their antics. JJ vaguely thought that Spencer’s begging and pleading wasn’t just an act, but she hadn’t wanted to step in and embarrass him by coming to his defense. He always seemed to think that, because he wasn’t as big and strong as the other male members of the group, he was somehow inadequate. JJ didn’t want to further cement those insecurities by standing up to Derek and ‘making’ him leave Spencer alone.
However, when Spencer didn’t immediately come to the surface of the water, she grew concerned. She sat forward in her chair and watched the water for any sign of her friend and coworker, but after almost 30 full seconds of nothing, she shot up out of her chair and ran to the water’s edge. Her eyes grew wide when she saw Spencer at the bottom of the pool, weakly flailing his arms and legs in an attempt to bring himself to the surface.
Without another thought, she dived into the pool and swam down to the bottom, using her years of experience on the high school swim team to get there as quickly as possible. She grabbed Spencer around the waist and then kicked her way back up the surface, breaking into the air with a giant gasp and call of, “Help!”
She needn’t have called, though, because as soon as she had crested the water, Hotch’s hands were there to help her carry Spencer over to the side where Derek pulled him out of the water.
Derek frantically checked Spencer for a pulse before he started CPR. His strong arms rhythmically pushed down in chest compressions while Hotch, who had almost immediately climbed out of the water to aide Derek, leaned Spencer’s head back to open his airway. He pinched Spencer’s bloody nose, absently noting that the oxygen deprivation also caused his lips to turn blue and his skin to take on a greyish color, and blew air into Spencer’s mouth.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Derek chanted as he continued to steadily piston his arms onto Spencer’s chest. “Don’t give up on me, kid!”
Suddenly, Spencer spluttered and started to cough. Hotch and Derek turned him on his side as he coughed and vomited up water, Derek reaching down to rub a hand in soothing circles over Spencer’s back.
“That’s it, you’re ok,” Derek said gently as he felt Spencer shivering under his hands. “Take a few deep breaths. It’s all gonna be ok.”
Spencer closed his eyes as he took in a few deep breaths and spit the last of the water out of his mouth. He brought a shaky hand up and wiped it down his face, smearing the water and blood together in a grotesque pattern down his face.
“I called an ambulance,” Rossi said, suddenly appearing behind Derek with a very concerned look on his face.
“Thanks Dave,” Hotch said as he wiped Spencer’s wet hair out of his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t swim, kid?” Derek asked in a distressed voice, guilt and self-hatred written all over his face.
“I-I tr-tr-tried,” Spencer answered in a slightly hoarse and quavering voice as he rolled himself onto his back to look up into the faces of his alarmed and worried team members. He was still shivering heavily and was immensely grateful when Haley walked over and draped a beach towel on top of him (she had taken Jack inside as soon as JJ had dived into the pool but had come back out to help after securing him in his playpen). “I-I’m s-s-so s-sorry!” Spencer wailed in a thin voice that was cracking with emotion as he started to sob. “I-I always r-ruin everything!”
“Don’t you dare blame this on yourself, Reid,” Derek said firmly while the rest of the team looked on sadly. “This was entirely my fault. Not yours.”
“Y-You were j-j-just tr-trying to have fun,” Spencer said, wide eyes staring directly into Derek’s as he tried to calm himself down. “I-I app-preciate you tr-trying to include me. N-No one ever h-has before. Th-Thank you. A-And th-thank you for s-saving me.”
Derek shut his eyes momentarily, trying to contain his emotions. He had accidentally caused the kid to drown and the kid was thanking him! And not only for throwing him in, but pulling him out and reviving him! How was he supposed to deal with this? Luckily he was saved from answering by the sound of the ambulance arriving.
As the EMTs came rushing back bearing a stretcher, Derek stood up and smiled sadly down at Spencer.
Spencer gave a hesitant smile back while he let himself be poked and prodded by the first responders before they put him on the stretcher and took him away, Derek following close behind. Spencer was loaded into the back of the ambulance and Derek jumped in with him, sitting down on the bench beside his head.
Derek grabbed Spencer’s hand and held it tightly, still sporting the same sad smile on his face as he looked into Spencer’s eyes. Spencer seemed to be surprised by the gesture but didn’t say anything, allowing his hand to be held and even tentatively squeezing back, a hesitant smile forming on his face.
As Spencer rested in an examination room in the emergency wing of this hospital, Derek allowed himself to breathe and think. An ER doctor had been in moments before and said that Spencer seemed to be just fine but he wanted to do another scan in a couple of hours to make sure that pneumonia hadn’t set in from the water in his lungs and for Spencer to just rest until then.
Derek had been extremely relieved to hear the prognosis, but he was still troubled about what Spencer had said after he had been revived. How could he thank Derek and say he appreciated him after what Derek had done? Derek had ignored the distress in Spencer’s voice and had just done what he wanted to, not even considering the possibility that Spencer couldn’t swim! Although now that he thought about it, he supposed it made sense. Spencer had grown up in a desert environment and hadn’t really had anyone that would have taught him how to swim.
Derek sighed. How could he have been so clueless? But that aside, Spencer’s attitude about the whole thing baffled him. If someone had thrown Derek into the water and he couldn’t swim, he would be pissed at whoever had done it! But Spencer… Spencer was just happy to have been included and then just thankful that someone had cared enough to save him!
Derek pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and took a couple deep breaths, trying to rein in his emotions. This wasn’t the time or the place for him to confront Spencer about his thoughts and confidence issues. He reached over and gently laid his hand on top of Spencer’s, moving it to twine their fingers together. He then looked down at Spencer’s peaceful, almost angelic face, smooth and perfect in slumber, and vowed to address Spencer’s self-esteem issues as soon as this was over. Spencer needed to know what an amazing person he was and how much he was cared for. Quietly, Derek leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Spencer’s forehead, determined to right what was so very wrong in this amazing man’s world.