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Spencer can’t tell when the camera is on. He can’t tell when the camera is on. He doesn’t know if this is being streamed to his team, and the idea that they could be seeing it terrifies him. He knows they saw him before, because Gideon talked back to him through the camera at the crime scene. But this, now—he just doesn’t know.
Tobias—not Charles, not Raphael—is the one who pulls up Spencer’s sleeve, despite Spencer’s protests, and when he does, he doesn’t comment on all of the scars decorating the pale skin of Spencer’s forearm. He didn’t comment on it the first time, or the second time, or the third time… He has one singular focus: inject the drugs. And that’s what he does, placing the needle with a practiced hand and sending Spencer hurtling into oblivion over and over and over again.
Tobias is the one who pulls up Spencer’s sleeve, but the last time he does it he leaves the fabric bunched up around Spencer’s elbow, and it’s still like that when Charles comes back, and Spencer is handcuffed and can’t do anything about it. And it doesn’t occur to Spencer at first just how much trouble he’s in—he’s barely coming back to his senses after being bombarded by memories of his childhood, remembering that time his mother walked in on him cutting his legs, the way she just turned around and walked out again, never speaking a word about it—it’s a memory he’s pushed way, way down, and he’s still recovering from its reappearance when Charles shows up, grabbing his arm and yanking it, forearm face up, multiple track marks and dozens of bright white scars on display.
“You’re worse than my son,” Charles sneers, glaring at Spencer, who starts to shake. “The drugs are bad enough, but this? You know your bible. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.”
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?” Spencer recites, his voice hollow and monotone. “ You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
“You said you weren’t a sinner, but you were lying. You’re disgusting.” He unlocks Spencer’s handcuffs. “Grab a shovel.” He takes Spencer out to the cemetery and forces him to start digging. “I ought to bury you alive in there,” he says. “Give you time to think about what you’ve done.”
“I know what I've done,” mutters Spencer.
“Don't talk back to me. Dig.”
Everything happens quickly after that. Charles gets frustrated and drops the gun. He looks to see who’s coming, and Spencer picks it up. Only one bullet in that gun, boy. Spencer shoots Charles in the chest, and he can see the flashlights of his team coming to find him, can hear them calling as he scrambles over to where Tobias now lays dying on the ground.
“Do you think I’ll see my mom again?” Tobias asks weakly.
“I’m sorry,” whispers Spencer.
And then his team finally reaches him, and they rescue him—though not before Spencer can sneak away and steal two precious vials out of Tobias’s pocket.
The drive to the hospital is excruciating; the lights in the ambulance make Spencer’s head hurt, and he’s dirty and disgusting and dehydrated, teetering on the edge of total sensory overload, and about ready to just shut right down. Hotch and Morgan both wanted to ride in the ambulance with him, but he refused, and when the paramedics take off his shirt and sweater vest to check on his broken ribs, he’s especially glad they’re not there. The paramedics don’t comment on his scars, but Spencer sees them notice, sees the glance they exchange. He simply looks the other way.
At the hospital, they change him into a gown and examine him, wrapping up his broken foot and broken ribs, running tests, cleaning him up and checking on his head. By the time the team is allowed to see him, he’s in a private room, and he’s snuggled himself deep under the covers so both his arms are out of sight.
“You cold, pretty boy?” Morgan asks when he comes in, and Spencer nods vigorously.
“Freezing,” he says. “You don’t…have a sweatshirt or anything, do you?”
Morgan runs out to the car and brings back a hoodie from his go-bag. Spencer carefully slips his arms straight from the covers to the sleeves and manages to keep himself pretty well covered up the whole time. There’s a slight snag with the IV line in his arm, but he manages to make it work well enough. Now he feels prepared to see the team.
He ends up staying in the hospital for a couple of days while he heals and the doctors determine if his head is okay after the seizure and the CPR he received from Tobias. He’s antsy to leave, and he refuses to take Morgan’s hoodie off the whole time. Everyone thinks it’s just another one of Spencer’s quirks, and he’s happy to let them believe that.
Actually, it’s been years since Spencer cut his arms. The scars are barely visible unless you’re looking right at them. But Spencer doesn’t want to take any chances, not after what happened with Charles. He’s still not sure exactly what his team saw on the video feed. And he’s afraid if someone were to see his arms, they’d want to check on other parts of him, and a couple of areas on his hips and thighs are still healing, and he wouldn’t want anyone to see that.
It’s not even like it’s that much of a problem anymore. Though he started cutting himself as a teenager, Spencer has managed to stop several times over the last decade, sometimes for years at a time. It’s only quite recently that it’s become an issue again, and even then, not a bad one. He hurts himself only occasionally, only when it gets really bad, and never where anyone could see. He’s sure he has it all completely under control.
They’re coming off the jet after arriving back at Quantico, Spencer’s foot in a boot, bruises decorating basically every part of him, when Morgan asks for his sweatshirt back.
“Do you need it right now?” Spencer asks nervously, pulling the fabric around himself.
“I was hoping to do laundry tonight,” Morgan explains. “But if you want to keep it, that’s fine.”
“I’m just, uh, still cold,” Spencer scrambles to explain.
“Pretty boy, it’s 75 degrees out.”
Spencer shrugs. “I’m always cold.”
“All right, all right,” Morgan says. “No worries, kid. You can keep it for now. You want a ride home?”
“Oh, I can take the metro…”
“No way are you taking public transportation with a broken foot and god knows what else,” Morgan says. “You’re coming with me.”
Spencer nods and follows him to his car, and they drive home silently. Morgan helps him up the stairs when they get to his apartment, carrying Spencer’s bags for him, and when they get inside, he sets them down and teasingly puts his hands on his hips.
“Now can I have my sweater back?” he asks, smiling.
“Uh, sure,” Spencer says. “Let me go change real quick.” He disappears before Morgan can say anything and returns a few minutes later carrying Morgan’s hoodie, dressed in sweatpants and his own sweatshirt. It feels nice to finally be in comfortable clothes again. He hands the hoodie to Morgan and then sits down on the couch.
“Thanks, kid,” Morgan says. “You need help with anything else? Do you want company tonight?”
“I think I’m okay,” says Spencer. “But thank you.”
Morgan gathers his things and heads towards the door.
“If you need anything, call me,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” says Spencer. He opens the door for Morgan and waves goodbye.
Once he’s alone, Spencer pulls the vials of Dilaudid out of the pocket of the soiled pants he stuffed in a plastic bag at the hospital and sets them on the counter in the bathroom.
He stares at them for a very long time before he finally puts them in the cupboard and takes out a razor blade instead.
Weeks pass, and Spencer continues to have staring contests with the Dilaudid, opting every time to cut himself instead of using the drugs. He believes he’s making the healthier choice—this won’t get him fired from work, it won’t permanently alter his brain chemistry, and it costs almost nothing. If he’s going to face down an addiction, better the one he knows than the one he doesn’t. But he still can’t bring himself to actually get rid of the Dilaudid, convincing himself that it helps just to have it around, just in case. So he keeps it in the cabinet and looks at it every once in a while, and that’s that.
After a week of physical recovery, he returns to work against Hotch’s orders, and he’s jittery and distracted. The crime scene photos are distressing, and he keeps having flashbacks to Hankel, and his hips and legs hurt where he’s maybe been cutting just a little bit too frequently—he finds himself slipping off to the bathroom during the day, even at work, even on cases, to cut himself. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets him through the day. The team can tell that something’s wrong, but nobody seems willing to confront him about his behavior, so he just pretends that everything is fine.
A couple of months go by, and Spencer still doesn’t feel like himself. After he ignores his cell phone to spend an evening with Ethan in New Orleans, Gideon finally sits down and talks with him, though it’s not as productive as he might have hoped. But at least someone has noticed he’s not okay. And maybe that’s enough.
It’s not enough, it turns out, and Spencer finds himself one evening on the bathroom floor in his boxers, a bottle of tequila in one hand and a razor blade in the other. He’s convinced himself he can’t do his job anymore—the PTSD is just too much, and nobody understands, or cares, and he’s never going to feel normal ever again. A part of him died in Georgia, and he’s never, ever going to be whole again. He drinks straight from the bottle and slashes up his thighs as tears roll down his cheeks and he wonders if he’ll ever feel happy again.
Eventually, he passes out on his bathroom floor.
He wakes up the next morning in a puddle of blood with a terrible hangover. He doesn’t even bother cleaning up the bathroom or tending to his injuries, he just drinks some water straight from the faucet and then slips on a pair of pajama pants and crawls into bed. He falls back into a dreamless sleep.
When he wakes again, his phone is ringing, and he smashes it against his ear before he realizes he needs to hit the “answer” button first. He tries again.
“Reid?” comes Hotch’s voice.
“Hey, Hotch,” Spencer murmurs, cringing at the loud noise in his ear and the pain in his head and legs.
“Are you planning on coming into work today?” Hotch asks. “It’s nearly noon. It’s fine if you need a personal day, but you have to call and let me know.”
“Sorry. I overslept,” Spencer croaks. “I guess I can’t make it in today.”
“Are you feeling alright?”
“Not really,” Spencer says. “I, uh, might be coming down with something.”
“Okay. Well, keep me posted if you’ll be out again tomorrow. Get some rest and take care of yourself. Do you need anything?”
“No, but thank you.”
They hang up, and Spencer goes back to sleep.
He takes the entire week off of work, telling Hotch that he’s sick, and spending most of the time sleeping or harming himself. He feels pathetic and weak, and he doesn’t know what he needs to do to make himself feel better. Every day seems worse than the one before.
He’s scared he’s going to feel this way forever.
Sunday night before he’s supposed to go back to work, Spencer panics. He doesn’t feel anywhere near ready to go back, but he’s already taken a full week off. As soon as he walks into the office everyone is going to know that something’s wrong—the bags under his eyes are darker than ever, and he’s been steadily losing weight since Georgia, and he can’t manage to get any color into his cheeks. He looks like a ghost. An ugly ghost.
By nine p.m. he’s worked himself up into a tizzy, and he finally gives up and calls Morgan. Maybe his best friend can help him out of this mess somehow. Maybe he’ll at least know what Spencer could say to Hotch to be able to get more time off of work.
The phone barely rings once before Morgan picks it up.
“Reid? Are you okay?”
Spencer swallows. “Um, no,” he says weakly. “Not really.”
“How can I help?” Derek sounds panicked, and Spencer doesn’t know why. Does he sound that bad?
“I’m not sure,” he says honestly.
“Can I come over there?” Morgan asks. “To your apartment?”
“I guess so—”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Morgan hangs up and leaves Spencer staring quizzically at his phone.
Spencer decides to go back to bed, so he unlocks the front door and then heads back into his bedroom, slipping under the covers and turning away from the door. He knows what he’s doing isn’t safe, that he shouldn’t leave the door unlocked, but he can’t really make himself care at this point. Soon enough, he falls asleep.
“Kid?” Spencer feels a hand on his shoulder, and he turns around to see Morgan standing in his bedroom.
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?” Morgan asks. “No offense, but you look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” Spencer admits.
“Okay, look, let’s not beat around the bush.” Morgan crosses his arms over his chest. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
Morgan frowns. “C’mon, kid, don’t play games with me.”
“I’m not,” says Spencer. “What are you talking about?”
“The drugs, Reid, ” Morgan says, and walks out of the room. A moment later, Spencer can hear him rummaging around in the bathroom.
“Wait!” Spencer calls, because though he’s desperately confused, he does know what Morgan is going to find in the bathroom, and it’s not going to be good. He jumps out of bed and follows Morgan to the bathroom, arriving just in time to see Morgan pull the bottles of Dilaudid out of the cabinet.
“Those aren’t—I haven’t been using those,” Spencer says quickly.
“Don’t lie to me, kid. We all know, okay? We’ve been observing you ever since Georgia. We know Hankel was addicted to Dilaudid, and we watched him give it to you. It only makes sense that you would get addicted, too. I know we should have figured it out earlier, and I’m sorry for that, but we’re here for you now and we’re going to get you help.”
“No, I don’t—I don’t need that!” Spencer cries. “I’m not doing drugs!”
“Just admit you have a problem, Reid.”
“I—” Spencer pauses. “I do have a problem,” he says. “But it’s not drugs.”
Morgan puts his hands on his hips and stares at Spencer.
“Look at the bottles,” Spencer says desperately. “They’re full. I haven’t used any, I swear.”
Morgan holds the vials up to the light and confirms that they are indeed full.
“Okay, so, what’s your problem?”
“What?”
“You said you have a problem, but it’s not drugs. What’s the problem?”
Crap. How’s he going to get out of this one?
“I’m just, uh…I think I have PTSD,” Spencer says lamely.
“No shit you have PTSD,” Morgan says. “But I don’t think that’s what you were referring to.”
Spencer looks away.
“These could be new bottles,” Morgan points out. “You could have used up the old ones. Show me your arms.”
“No! I’m not doing drugs!”
“Then why have you been acting so erratically?” Morgan demands. “Why are you so anxious and fidgety? Why do you disappear to the bathroom for long periods of time? Why won’t you talk to any of us about the fact that you’re obviously not okay?”
“Because I’m embarrassed!” Spencer blurts out. “I won’t talk to you because I’m embarrassed to be so much of a mess so far after the fact! I should be better by now! I should be fine on cases but I’m not! I shouldn’t be so bothered by every little thing but I am! And it’s humiliating!”
“Reid—”
“You want to know why I’m jittery and weird? Because I haven’t felt like myself since Hankel kidnapped me. I don’t know where that person went, but he’s not here, and I can’t find him. I don’t know how to pretend to be myself for you guys. I don’t know how to make myself seem normal again. I don’t know how to pretend like every little thing doesn’t get to me.”
“And your disappearances to the bathroom?” Morgan asks suspiciously.
Spencer wilts.
And then he caves.
“You can’t tell anyone,” he says urgently. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?”
“I’m going to show you. But not until you promise.”
Morgan frowns. “I’m not going to make any promises,” he says. “If you’re in trouble, the team needs to know.”
“No, actually, they don’t,” Spencer snaps. “You all want to know, you all feel somehow entitled to my business, but I don’t owe any of you anything. This is my personal life. You’re my coworkers. None of this is your business.”
“Reid…we’re your family.”
“Well, maybe I don’t really feel like I have a family right now.”
Morgan looks sad at that, but Spencer doesn’t feel bad. They aren’t his family right now. Spencer has no family right now. He has nothing right now.
“Kid, just tell me what’s going on,” Morgan begs.
“I will as soon as you promise to keep it to yourself. And if you can’t promise that, I won’t tell you what’s going on, and you can go ahead and leave and stop worrying about me, because I can take care of myself.”
It’s a bluff. He’s speaking out of desperation and he’s saying all the wrong things. He doesn’t want Morgan to leave. He doesn’t want to keep trying to take care of himself. But he also can’t bear the thought of the entire team knowing his personal business, and he truly does not believe that that’s too much to ask.
Morgan is quiet for a long time, clearly contemplating his next move. Spencer doesn’t rush him, just moves to the living room where he can curl up on the couch, and Morgan follows him, taking a seat in a chair. He wears a frown on his face, and Spencer can’t help but berate himself. It’s your fault Morgan is upset. You did this.
Finally, finally, Morgan speaks.
“Okay,” he sighs. “I won’t tell anyone.
“You promise?”
“I promise, kid.”
Spencer stands up and pulls up the bottom of his hoodie until it’s about at his waist. Then he tugs down his pajama pants and boxers until his bare hip is exposed. There’s a mess of cuts on display, most of them criss-crossing over old scars, all of them dark red and scabbed over.
He watches Morgan’s face as he takes in the sight. Morgan’s eyes grow wide and he stares for a long time, apparently trying to process what he’s seeing. Finally, he looks up at Spencer.
“You did that?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
“Yeah,” Spencer murmurs, pulling his pants back up and letting the hem of his hoodie fall.
“How…how long have you been doing that?”
Spencer shrugs. “Since I was a teenager,” he says. “It’s, um…it’s been worse lately. Since Georgia.”
“Oh, my god,” Morgan breathes. “Kid, is this what Hankel was berating you for? Do you have more scars on your arms?”
Spencer nods. “He saw them when he was looking at the track marks. That was the sin that made him decide I had to die.”
“Reid…”
Spencer is silent.
“Can I check your arms for track marks now?”
“What?”
“I’m assuming you wouldn’t let me before because you didn’t want me to see the scars. Now I know they’re there. So, can I check your arms for track marks?”
“Fine,” Spencer huffs, rolling his eyes. He pushes his sleeves up and holds his arms out to Morgan. “Happy?”
“No, I’m not happy,” Morgan says, after confirming that there aren’t any fresh marks. “I should take you to a hospital.”
Spencer feels his pulse quicken and his hands start to flap at his sides.
“No,” he insists. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“Kid…you’re not safe. You’re hurting yourself. That’s not okay. And if you’re not going to let me tell the team about it…at least let me get you some help.”
“Absolutely not,” Spencer says. “And if you insist, I will run, and you will never find me.”
“Reid—”
“I have everything under control,” Spencer says, though he knows it’s not true. He tries to convince himself. “I know how to take care of them, how to clean them. I’m not drinking anymore, and I didn’t use the drugs. Surely that has to count for something. Please, I’ll do anything, I’ll, um, I’ll try to stop, even, just please don’t lock me away. Please don’t do that. I can’t— I can’t—” Soon he’s breathing too quickly to speak, and he lets himself slide off the couch onto the wooden floor, his knees to his chest, and if he happens to be pressing on some of the wounds on his legs and hips, well, Morgan doesn’t need to know about that.
“Breathe, kid. C’mon. You gotta breathe.”
“Don’t lock me away.”
“Kid—”
“Don’t lock me away!”
“Fine!” The word is sharp, it cuts through the tension and eases Spencer’s breathing. He tries to take deep, slow breaths, and soon he succeeds.
“Promise?”
“Promise,” sighs Morgan. “But I don’t like this. Not one bit. And you are going to therapy, and you are going to tell them about this.”
“Fine,” Spencer spits. As long as he’s not being locked up, he thinks he’ll agree to almost anything.
“And you swear you’re not on drugs?”
“I swear.”
“And don’t think I didn’t hear you mention you weren’t drinking anymore. You wanna talk about that now, or…?”
“Not now, please.”
“What do you want to do right now?”
“Rest?” Spencer suggests. “Can I just…lay down for a little while?”
Morgan softens. “Yeah, kid, that’s fine,” he says. “Why don’t you lay down in bed. Leave your door open. I’ll be right out here.”
Spencer doesn’t even have the energy to argue about the door. He stalks off to his bedroom, burrows under the covers, and falls asleep.
When Spencer wakes up, he hears voices out in the living room. Sunlight is streaming through the window—apparently he slept through the night, and now it’s morning. Whoops.
He stumbles out into the living room, his head foggy with sleep, and finds Hotch in his signature suit sitting on the couch next to Morgan, who’s still in his sweats from the day before.
“Did we wake you up?” Morgan asks. “Sorry about that. I had to call Hotch to explain why I wouldn't be at work this morning, and he wanted to come by and check on you.
“Morgan—”
“I explained that you’ve been struggling with depression and PTSD ever since what happened in Georgia,” Morgan says pointedly. “I told him that’s why you’ve been acting so strange lately. And I promised him you haven’t been doing drugs. So you’d better not have lied to me.”
Spencer relaxes. “Thank you,” he says. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“We’ve all been worried about you, Reid,” says Hotch. “How can we best support you?”
“Uhh…” Spencer shrugs. “Morgan said something about getting me into therapy. And I guess…maybe I need a little bit more time off work? If that’s possible?”
“You sure you want to be here alone?” Morgan asks, staring at Spencer.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Spencer says. “I’ll be fine. I just, I’m so tired, and I need to not look at crime scene photos for a little while.”
“That’s perfectly fine,” says Hotch. “I can give you another week, if you think that would help? And then we can reevaluate and see if you need more time. You didn’t take enough time off after Hankel, so I don’t mind you taking that extra time now.
“Thank you,” Spencer says gratefully. “I think that would be good.”
“Can I take some time off to stay here with him?” asks Morgan.
Spencer frowns. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“No,” Spencer says, “you really don’t. You can stop by after work sometimes if you want, to check in and see how things are going, but I don’t need someone with me 24/7. In fact, that will drive me absolutely insane. I will remind you that you are not my caretaker, you are my coworker.”
“Morgan, I think that’s a reasonable request from Reid. He’s an adult, he can take care of himself.”
“But he—”
“Don’t,” Spencer interrupts him, eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare.”
“Hotch needs to know—”
“Hotch doesn’t need to know shit,” Spencer hisses, well aware that they’re talking about Hotch right in front of him. “You made me a promise. I trusted you. You need to respect my wishes, and if you can’t do that, you can get the hell out of here right now, and don’t bother coming back.”
Morgan looks torn.
“Morgan, Reid’s an adult. If he asked you not to tell me something, I ask that you respect his request and don’t tell me,” Hotch says evenly. “We aren’t entitled to his trust. That’s a privilege. And one you shouldn’t abuse.”
“Thank you, Hotch,” Spencer says quietly.
“You’re welcome, Reid. I do want you to know that you are always welcome to talk to me about anything that may be bothering you, and I’ll do my best to help.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m going to head into the office,” says Hotch. “Morgan, when will you be in?”
“I have to stop at home and change,” says Morgan. “But I’d like to hang out here for a little while longer…”
“You don’t need to hang out here,” says Spencer. “You can go. It’s okay.”
“I’m going to stay for a few minutes after Hotch leaves,” Morgan says, “and then I promise I’ll leave you alone.”
“Fine.”
Hotch heads out, and Morgan walks him to the door, then comes back to the couch and sits down next to Spencer.
“I can’t believe you almost told him,” Spencer says sharply. “We just talked about—”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Morgan sighs. “I just thought he needed to know.”
“That’s your problem,” Spencer says. “You think everyone’s entitled to information about me. You think my business is everyone’s business. They’re not entitled, and it’s not their business. I’m allowed to have privacy. I’m allowed to have secrets. Believe it or not, I’m allowed to hurt myself. That’s my choice to make. I know you want to come in here and save the day or whatever, but I can take care of myself. I told you I’d get therapy, and I told you I’d tell them about my problem. And I will. But you can’t just go around telling my business to other people. You just can’t. That’s not your right, and it’s disrespectful. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Morgan nods reluctantly.
“I guess I didn’t really think about it that way,” he says quietly. “I just want to fix things and make them better for you.”
“Well, you can’t,” Spencer says bluntly. “The things that need fixing aren’t in your control. You can help me find a therapist. In fact, I would really appreciate your help with that. But that’s all you can do right now besides being here for me. If you’re willing to do that.”
“Of course I’m willing to be here for you. And I will absolutely help you find a therapist.”
“Thank you. Um, you can probably go to work now. Thanks for coming over last night when I called you. I appreciate it. And sorry for being, you know, such a mess.”
“You’re not a mess,” Morgan promises. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll come by after work as long as we don’t get a case, all right?”
“All right. Thank you.”
Morgan leaves, and Spencer goes back to bed.
Spencer takes another week off work after the one Hotch grants him, because he just isn’t ready to go back yet. He tries to be better—he really does. He tries to distract himself, and to call Morgan when he feels the urge to harm himself, and he spends lots of time sleeping or reading or taking baths, trying to learn how to do “self care”.
He doesn’t always do a very good job.
By the time he goes to his first therapy appointment, scheduled by Morgan, he’s back to hurting himself regularly, and he’s honest about that with the therapist. He’s honest with her about all of it, everything that’s happened to him and how he’s chosen to cope. To tell the truth, he’s afraid if he doesn’t do something to quell this habit, he really is going to end up hospitalized. And he can’t stand the thought—not after everything he’s been through with his mother. So he’s open and honest with his therapist, and she helps him develop strategies for overcoming what’s been his primary coping mechanism since he was 13 years old, and to his absolute surprise, after a while, they actually start to work.
Morgan continues to stop by and check on Spencer whenever he’s not at work and they don’t have a case, and Spencer welcomes his help as long as he promises not to share Spencer’s secrets with anyone, and so far, it’s been fine. He’s grateful for Morgan’s friendship—grateful he doesn’t have to feel all alone in this anymore.
Overall, his time off is beneficial. He realizes he probably should’ve taken the proper amount of time off after Georgia, and used that time to let himself heal—but then, he was such a mess at that point, maybe it wouldn’t have helped at all. Maybe there wouldn’t have been healing. Maybe that would’ve just given him more time to hurt himself and contemplate taking drugs.
As it is, he’s now got support from Morgan, and from his therapist, and he feels like he has a reason to get better. He’s no longer stuck alone with his thoughts day after day, and he’s learning how to face what happened to him rather than just ignoring it as much as possible.
He was truly surprised to learn that his whole team thought he was on drugs, and it takes a lot of therapy to work through his anger at the fact that no one ever reached out to do anything to help him, not until Spencer called Morgan that night. He talks to Morgan about it, explaining that things like this are the reason he doesn’t truly feel like the team is his family. A real family would have done something. A real family would have tried to help. Morgan listens to what Spencer says, really listens, and apologizes.
He tells Spencer that the whole team would like to apologize, if Spencer is willing to hear it. Morgan has already made it more than clear that Spencer is not taking drugs and never was, and the team is glad and relieved.
And Spencer wants to forgive them. He really does.
So he agrees to try.
He makes a decision before his first day back at work, and his therapist encourages him to go ahead with it.
The team gathers in the round table room to welcome Spencer back, and he does his best to tolerate all of their hugs and pats on the back. He tells them sincerely that he’s glad to see them, and they smile at him and tell him they’re glad he’s feeling better.
“I have a few things I want to say,” Spencer says nervously when everyone is sitting down. “I, uh, I know you all think I was taking drugs, and I also know that you now know I never was. But I want you to know that I was really, really mad at you for a long time for believing that about me and never confronting me about it. It’s really upsetting to know that you thought I could be involved with something so terrible and you wouldn’t say a thing to me. I’ve worked through that in therapy, though, and I’m ready to forgive you for it. Just so you know.”
The team is silent for a moment, and then Garcia speaks.
“We’re so sorry, boy wonder. We should have been there for you and we weren’t. We don’t deserve your forgiveness. But we appreciate and cherish it.”
Spencer gives her a small smile.
“I need to tell you guys something else,” he adds. “It’s, um. It’s very personal. But you guys are my family, so I think you should know. It’s—it’s the real reason I was acting so oddly after Georgia.”
Morgan catches his eye, and Spencer nods. Then he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows.
He leans on the table with his forearms facing out where everyone can see them.
“Oh, Spence,” JJ says sadly, and gasps come from both Garcia and Emily.
Gideon doesn’t say anything, but he stares at Spencer for a long time before finally giving him a nod and a reassuring look.
“Was this what you didn’t want Morgan telling me about?” Hotch asks quietly, and Spencer nods. “Well,” says Hotch. “Thank you for telling us now.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Emily is looking at Spencer from across the table. He nods. “These scars are all pretty old. You said this was the reason you were acting oddly after Georgia. Do you…still do this?”
Spencer ducks his head and nods. “Less often than I used to,” he says. “But yes. Just not on my arms. My, um… my therapist is helping me, so…” He shrugs.
“That’s really great, Spencer. I’m glad you have someone to help you.”
“Thank you for telling us, baby genius,” adds Garcia. “It means a lot that you trust us with this.”
“I didn’t always,” Spencer admits. “But I’ve learned a lot over the past several weeks. And one of the things I learned was that I have a family here who care about me. And that means a lot.”
“We’re always here for you, pretty boy,” Morgan promises. “We just want you to be okay.”
“Spence, please call me anytime if you need someone to talk to, or you need help, or you just don’t want to be alone. I’m here for you,” says JJ.
“That goes for me, too,” Hotch adds, and the others all nod.
“I know we didn’t reach out to help you before,” Gideon says quietly. “But you didn’t reach out to us for help, either. Maybe we can all try to do better?”
“Yeah,” Spencer says. “I think that would be really good.”
“Team bonding night tonight at my place?” Emily suggests. “You’re all welcome.”
“I’ll be there,” Spencer promises.
That night, when the seven of them are gathered at Emily’s, Spencer truly understands what it feels like to have a family.