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One second, Spencer is talking about the linguistic differences of “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” and “Rock, Scissors, Paper,” and the next second, the world is falling apart.
It takes Spencer far too long to realize that it’s not the whole world, it’s just the building. The funeral home is falling like the floor is a sinkhole, even though Spencer knows that it’s not, there aren’t any sinkholes in northern Minnesota, in fact, the closest recorded sinkhole was in Rochester, and they’re all of the way up at-
A chunk of the ceiling falls down, narrowly avoiding his head, but still knocking him down. His head rings from hitting the ground, and he spends a few seconds feeling dazed.
By the time his vision clears, Spencer’s panic is back full force.
“Blake?” He stutters out, dust still clouding his lungs. “Blake!”
A piece of concrete over his right shoulder prevents him from seeing all of Blake’s body, save for the side of her cheek. Without thinking on it, Spencer pushes the slab with his left hand, determined to get it off of his body.
A scream tears from Spencer’s throat without his permission, but he keeps pushing. Force equals mass times acceleration, and the mass of the concrete slab is probably-
It finally falls off, but that somehow doesn’t help the pain. As if living in a backwards world, the lack of pressure makes the pain worse, and Spencer has to grind his molars together to avoid screaming out again. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help hold the whimpers from escaping.
Although Blake didn’t wake from Spencer’s pained scream, her eyes flutter open from his whimpers. Without moving, she slurs out, “Ethan?”
“Blake?” Spencer calls out, shifting his head ever so slightly so he has a clear line of vision to her body.
“Wha’?”
Spencer swallows. “Are you okay?”
After a few seconds of shallow breathing, Blake questions, “Reid?”
“Yeah,” He confirms. “It’s- Blake, are you okay?” He asks worriedly, seeing her turn over to retch.
Pushing herself onto her knees she questions, “What happened?”
“The building,” Spencer awkwardly answers. “Bomb. I think.”
Blake nods in response, before instantly regretting it, watching the world spin around her. “And you? ‘Re you ‘kay?”
Spencer doesn’t dare nod, and unsteadily answers, “I’m okay.”
Blake takes one look at him on the ground and immediately answers, “No, ‘ou’re not,” Before blinking a few times, wishing that the world would expel itself from the blender it’s currently in.
Spencer feels the pain starting at his chest, running into his right shoulder, all the way down his arm, but he hasn’t looked at the damage yet. Based on Blake’s worried face, he’s pretty sure it looks worse than it feels.
He takes a deep breath, and turns his neck.
Before moving it only a few centimeters and crying out in pain.
“Don’ move, Reid,” Blake instructs, making her way over to his body, albeit quite wobbly.
Ignoring her advice, Spencer takes another breath, before forcing his neck to the side. He suddenly wishes that he kept looking at the destroyed ceiling.
His collarbone is fractured in at least two places, if the large, already swollen bumps are anything to go by, and in at least one of the places it’s pressing right up against his skin, threatening to poke out. Further down, his shoulder joint shares the size of a softball, managing to even obscure part of his field of view. He can’t even see the damage done to the rest of his arm because of it.
Now that he sees the pain, it seems as if his body recalibrates the pain, making every heartbeat throb worse.
Breathlessly, Blake requests, “‘Reathe, you need to ‘reathe,”
Spencer hadn’t even noticed that he stopped. “Blake,” He chokes out, unsure of where he was even going with that sentence.
“Jus’ ‘reathe, yeah?”
“Can’t,” Spencer sobs, feeling his head go fuzzy from pain.
The pain is suffocating, nearly taking him to unconsciousness, and it takes all of Spencer’s will power to stay awake. He remembers getting shot in the knee (how could he forget), but he’s sure that the pain then is a walk in the park compared to this.
It feels like molten lava being poured over his right shoulder, along with a few vats of boiling oil. Inside, it’s like Charles himself is beating his clavicle with wretched tree branches. The joint of his shoulder is pounding, throbbing, and it won’t ease up, even for a single second.
It hurts.
There’s no other way to describe it.
“Can’ close ‘ou’re eyes, Ethan,” Blake begs, falling down to her knees next to him. “Don’ do this to’me, please,”
“Blake,” Spencer murmurs, losing the battle, letting his eyes slip close. “You need to find help,”
“You can’ sleep righ’ now, I’m sorry,” She replies, as if she didn’t hear anything that Spencer just said.
Using all of his remaining power, Spencer gulps, “You need to call for help, okay?”
“Don’ leave me,”
“Blake!”
“You can’ leave me!” She sobs, collapsing to the floor beside Spencer, narrowly avoiding his torn up shoulder. “Please, Ethan, please,”
Finally understanding that Blake’s concussion has her trapped in memory, he requests, “I need your phone,”
Still not understanding him, Blake continues, “‘Ou’re gonna be ‘kay, baby. Just kee’ ‘ou’re eyes on me,”
Letting a sob rip, Spencer tries again, “Blake! I need you phone,”
“Open 'our eyes, baby,”
“Give me your phone, Blake,” Spencer sobs, all of his pain taking away his energy. He forces his eyes open, if only to convince his coworker to calm down a bit. Frowning, Spencer watches as the ceiling swirls around.
Falling from her knees down to her elbows, Blake begins crying in earnest. “Don’ do this to me, baby, please,” He cries turn into gulping sobs, and Spencer knows the type. Blake is gasping for breaths, sobs taking over any chance at breathing normally.
Spencer doesn’t know what she’s reliving, and is only slightly glad that he doesn’t understand. It sounds traumatic, to say the least.
After she chokes out more broken “Ethans” and “pleases,” Spencer gives up on trying to get her phone from her. And with his messenger bag completely crushed and covered by concrete and rebar, he knows that even if he could get to it, there’s no way his phone would still be in the right condition.
A jolt of fear courses through Spencer’s veins. Maeve’s book is in his messenger bag. ‘The Narrative of John Smith’ could be dirty, or torn up, and Spencer feels his heart speed up. That’s the only thing he has left of her.
But with each increased heartbeat, more pain joins the party, and he can’t do anything to stop it. Moving his neck back to its original position seems like an impossible task, so he stays right where he is, looking at his disfigured shoulder.
Spencer figures that at least when his eyes close and he falls into unconsciousness, he won’t have to look at the bruises that are already blossoming.
*
Spencer is screaming before he even realizes that he wakes up.
It feels like his arm is being torn off via bear, not that he’d know exactly what that felt like, but he imagines that it’s pretty close to what he’s feeling right now. Heat pools under his collarbone, and his body instinctively jerks, causing more pain all around.
Hands are on his neck, forcing it to be straight once again, and it hurts a million times worse than it did when he first moved it to the side. He doesn’t want to think about how swollen it must be.
“Stop, stop!” He cries out, eyes flying open from pain.
“He’s awake!” A female voice calls out, and Spencer blinks a few times from the new voice. He’s still stuck looking to the side, and he has no idea who’s just called out. It doesn’t sound like anyone he knows.
She speaks again, voice quiet and calming, the complete opposite of Spencer’s poor joint.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
Spencer gasps out, “Who are you?”
“My name is Deliliah, I’m a first responder and paramedic. Can you tell me your name?”
He opens his mouth to reply, he really does, but instead the only thing that comes out is a broken sob.
“Sir, can you tell me what your name is?”
Another pair of hands ghost over his skin, and Spencer is ridiculously grateful for their nitrile gloves. He doesn’t know if he could handle billions of bacteria from their palms right now.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
Spencer can see the new figure, kneeled by his horrifically broken arm, and Spencer frowns. Where did Blake go?”
“Sir?”
Taking in a sharp breath he asks, “Wha’?”
“Can you tell me your name?”
Letting his eyes slip closed once again, he finally chokes out, “Spencer Reid.”
He can nearly hear the smile in her voice, “Okay Spencer, we’re going to get you out of here as soon as possible, does that sound good?”
Spencer groans out a response close to “Yes.”
“Other than your shoulder, do you feel pain anywhere else in your body?”
If he’s being completely honest, he can’t tell. His right shoulder is so overpowering, he can barely focus enough to open his eyes back up, let alone catalogue his body. Eventually he settles on, “I don’t think so.”
Delilah’s smiling voice comes back, “Okay, that’s good. I’m just going to double check, okay? Do you feel any pain in your back?”
“No?” All he feels is his arm.
“Can you wiggle your toes for me real quick?” Spencer complies, and she applauds, “Good job,” Which seems a bit excessive to Spencer. “And just making sure, your head doesn’t hurt?”
Spencer frowns, thinking on the question for a second. His head hurts, but it’s nothing new. His head had been hurting since Maeve-
Since Maeve.
“No,” He answers.
“Okay, I’m glad,” Delilah notes. “Now, to get you out of here, we’re going to need to get your neck straight, okay?”
Spencer swallows. “Can’t,”
With sympathy, Delilah acknowledges, “It’s going to hurt a lot, but we need to get you into a brace, and you need to be facing forward for that. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to relax as much as you can, Spencer. My partner Tahn is going to make sure that you don’t move your shoulders, and I’m going to gently move your neck until we can fit the brace around it, got it?”
“Yes.”
He feels fingers on his jaw, and then the world erupts into white hot pain. Mirroring his waking up, Spencer is screaming even after he falls unconscious.
*
Spencer wakes with a gasp, an obnoxious fluorescent light above him.
“Hi Spencer,” A sweet voice greets him, “I need you to stay very still, okay?”
Scrunching his eyebrows, Spencer questions, “Where?”
“You’re in an ambulance right now, on the way to the hospital. Can you tell me what hurts?”
Taking a few moments for the question to sink in, he eventually answers, “Shoulder,”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know,” He exhales. He tries to look to the side, but pain erupts in and around him, enabling the world to cloud out for a few moments.
It’s Delilah’s voice that brings him back, “Don’t try to move right now, Spencer, okay?”
“Mmhm.” He’s definitely learned his lesson. A second later, he forgets it, nearly launching himself up.
“Sir! Spencer!” Delilah cries out, attempting to gently press her patient back down. “You need to stay still, do you understand?”
Sucking in a breath Spencer croaks, “No narcotics, I don’t take narcotics, okay? I don’t- I can’t-”
Setting a hand on his good arm, Delilah notes, “You haven’t been given any type of narcotics yet, okay? And I’ll make sure to let the doctors know. I need you to take some deep breathless right now though,”
Relieved, Spencer melts back into the gurney, letting the pain over take him once again.
“We’re a few minutes out from the hospital Spencer, but I need you to stay awake. Can you do that for me?” Delilah asks, noticing her patient’s decline.
“Got it,” Spencer confirms, only slightly absentmindedly.
With every bump and pothole the ambulance passes over, Spencer can nearly hear the bones in his shoulder and clavicle shifting around, occasionally eliciting a whine from him. With his adamant decision to not accept narcotics, Delilah was basically powerless to help her patient any further, so she suffices for willing divers to get out of the way on the road.
When the gurney is shifted and rolled into the ER, Spencer clenches his eyes shut and grinds his teeth, a poor method of pain relief.
More people poke and prod at him, and it feels like countless nurses and doctors introduce themselves to Spencer. He tries to answer as honestly as he can, but soon enough it’s just people talking over and around him.
At some point Spencer hears of imminent surgery, and in the blink of an eye he has an IV full of propofol, and he’s asleep.
*
JJ is there when he wakes up.
Muddled with sleep and pain, Spencer confirms, “Jayje?”
Smiling and holding onto his hand, JJ answers, “Hey, Spence. How do you feel?”
“‘M okay,” He answers, swallowing in an attempt to get the sleep out of his voice. “Is Blake okay?”
“She’s here for observation,” The agent starts, a sad smile pulled across her face. “There was swelling around her brain, but she’s going to be okay,” She quickly adds, seeing Spencer’s worried look.
Spencer frowns. “She didn’t know who I was.”
“What?”
“When we were under the building,” He specifies, “Blake thought that I was someone else. Ethan. Who’s Ethan?”
Looking just as confused, JJ answers, “I’m not sure. She woke up a couple of hours ago and recognized Rossi and Hotch. I’m sure she remembers you,” Taking a breath, she insists, “It was probably just the trauma.”
“Yeah.” Spencer agrees, before finally turning to look at the monstrosity that is his right side. “What happened to my shoulder?” The entire thing is wrapped up tightly, bandages preventing him from seeing even an inch of his skin from his collarbone down to his elbow.
Sympathetically wincing, JJ replies, “You hurt it pretty bad. I should go grab the doctor-”
“How long was I out?”
A bit surprised by the question, she answers, “This time? Only a few hours.”
“Was I awake before?”
“You’ve had three surgeries.” JJ quietly tells him. “Although you were pretty out of it between them. I’m not surprised you don’t remember.”
Even more confused with the extra information, Spencer asks “How long has it been since the building fell?”
“About a day.”
There’s a pregnant pause in the conversation before Spencer confirms, “But Blake is okay?”
With a relieved smile JJ repeats, “She’s okay. Like I said, she woke up all on her own a few hours ago. They don’t think there’s going to be any lasting damage, but it’s still a little too early to tell, apparently.” Spencer opens his mouth to ask more questions, but JJ beats him to the chase, “I’m going to go grab your surgeon. I’ll be right back.”
Avoiding a nod, Spencer notes, “Okay.”
As soon as the surgeon steps in the room, Spencer asks, “What happened to my shoulder?”
Glancing at JJ he asks his own questions, “Are you okay with Agent Jareau hearing this?”
“Yes.”
He nods, grasping his hands together. “I’m Doctor Phillip Burrows, and I performed three surgeries on you over the course of the past day. I’m glad to see that you’re awake and aware,” He adds with a smile.
“Me too,” Spencer awkwardly replies. “How bad is my shoulder?”
Burrows takes a deep breath and begins. “You had multiple breaks around the glenohumeral joint: and the lateral portion of your clavicle was nearly shattered. You have four screws in your right acromion, and there’s a good chance that many of those will be in permanently.” He takes a second, letting the information sink in, and then continues. “You tore your supraspinatus tendon and coracoacromial ligament, which is one of my biggest concerns. Further down, the proximal end of your humerus also broke, an avulsion fracture specifically.”
Unable to turn a different direction, Spencer spends a few seconds looking straight forward, not necessarily in shock, but definitely not absorbing all of the information either. A second later, he feels his left hand being slipped into JJ’s.
“Spence? Are you okay?”
Ignoring her worry, Spencer swallows and questions, “How, how much will be permanent?”
With a sigh, Burrow answers, “It’s hard to tell right now. Physical and occupational therapy will help a great amount, but I can’t confidently tell you that you’ll make a full recovery.”
That’s it. Those were the words Spencer knew were coming.
The words he dreaded, while fully knowing it was going to happen.
JJ grips his hand tighter. “Spence?”
“Were you able to recover my messenger bag?”
Taken aback from the question, she nods, “After most of the rubble was cleared, first responders gave it to Hotch.”
“Can I have it?”
Sensing the confusion in the air, Burrows interjects, “I have a few other patients to oversee, but if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know. And I’ll have a nurse come by to evaluate your pain.” He smiles at the two of them, and reiterates, “Let me know if you have any questions, Spencer.”
“Yeah.” He answers quietly, making eye contact with this sling. After he leaves, Spencer asks, “Can I see Blake?”
JJ smiles. “I’m sure we can arrange that. I’m going to go find Hotch, and I’ll ask him, okay?”
“Thank you,”
“I’ll be back in just a second, I promise.”
*
It only takes an hour until Spencer’s shitty hospital bed is pushed into Blake’s room, the rest of the BAU all cramped around the outside.
Blake has gauze and bandages wrapped around the side of her head, and Spencer can see a few molten bruises poke out from the sides.
Both of the agents are immediately relieved after seeing each other.
After a few back and forths of “Are you sure you’re okay?” It seems like everything from the past twenty-four hours is finally calming down.
At eight that evening the BAU is kicked out of the room, but Rossi manages to convince the nurses to let Spencer stay in Blake’s hospital room. Spencer’s ninety percent sure that some promises regarding book signings were bargained, but he doesn’t mention it.
Blake is able to curl on her side, whereas Spencer can only awkwardly pivot his entire body to the left a bit.
Finally, he asks the question that had been bouncing around his mind since yesterday.
“Who’s Ethan?”
Blake’s shoulders immediately tighten up, reaching her ears. “What?”
Ignoring her stress response, Spencer asks again, “Who’s Ethan? You called me Ethan when the building fell.”
Looking away from his face, Blake confesses, “I don’t remember anything after introducing myself to the mortician.”
“Oh.” Still determined, Spencer presses, “But you didn’t forget who Ethan was, did you?”
Blake instinctively curls in on herself more. “I could never forget Ethan,” She says, quietly, so quietly that Spencer isn’t even sure she said anything.
“Who is…?”
Letting a tear drip down her face, sideways, all the way to her ear, she whispers. “My son.”
Spencer feels his own heart skip a beat. “I didn’t know that you-”
“I don’t.” She quietly interrupts.
The two sit in silence, before Spencer asks the question Blake knew was coming. “What happened?”
“A neurological disorder,” She whispers, more tears falling. “They didn’t have a name for it. They still don’t.”
Spencer swallows. “You were there when he passed, weren’t you?”
Blake looks up for the first time since the conversation began. “What?”
“Back in the building,” There’s no going back now, “You told me to just keep my eyes open. To, to not leave you.”
Blake looks back down on the white sheets. “He was ready to go. I wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” Spencer offers, and they both know the weight of those two little words. They both know how genuine Spencer is, and how there will never be words to explain how he really feels.
When Blake doesn’t answer, Spencer gulps, “You should probably get some sleep. It’s important for the brain to rest for concussions.” Based on the tears rolling down her face, Spencer doubts that she’ll be getting any sleep. Nevertheless, she closes her eyes.
Spencer watches her for a few moments, wondering how someone goes on after their child has died.
It’s not something he can understand.
With his left arm, he reaches out to his dusty messenger bag, unlocking the buckle, and digging through with one hand. He feels the familiar hard cover of ‘The Narrative of John Smith,’ and pulls it out.
Like a child with a stuffed animal, he holds it to his chest with his left arm, and lets his thoughts wander.
That night, both of agents dream of the love they’ll never get to share.