Title: Open Your Chest and Take the Heart from It

By: Mia Shade

Summary: One-shot following 'Revelations'. Reid takes the plane to New York City, knowing that only one person has been through what he's been through and has the guts to answer the one question he's afraid to know: Elle. Not a romance, just friendship.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.

A/N: I was on the bus and considering Elle and Reid's conversation in 'Aftermath'—the toast to winning; at about that moment the song 'Winning' by Emily Haines came into my head, and voila, here we are. I do have a prologue to a multi-chapter story that I'm working on, but this story had so much heart and so much tragedy in it that I was immediately enchanted into writing it. Feedback, as always, is appreciated.

This takes place in between Revelations and Fear and Loathing.

The paragraphs in italics with parentheses are memories, if anyone gets confused. I think I've made it pretty clear but you never know.

***

Emily Haines wrote:

"What's bad? What's wrong?

Make it all right…

All right, it's gone, so long,

We've got time, all the time.
All the time…"

("Andrea?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Um…are you—are you busy right now?"

"Not really, what can I do for you?"

"…could you fly me to New York?"

"Takin' a vacation, Doctor Reid? Does Agent Hotchner know?"

"He can't know where I'm going."

"Right, well, I have to report all of the times I take the plane out."

A blush across his cheeks, the whispering sounds of cash as it emerges from his pocket:

"I can pay you—"

"It's no problem, sir, I can tell them I'm taking it out for a tune-up; just tell me when you'd like to leave."

"…Now. As soon as possible. Please.")

While Spencer Reid could remember everything he'd ever read, he could also remember many things that he'd heard as well. Sitting on the BAU's plane and watching the sun set majestic in orange and red and dark, deep blue, Reid knew that he could remember Morgan saying that the ride to New York City was only an hour by plane. Three hours by train. Countless if you decided to walk, but Reid pushed away the mental urge to calculate that figure in his head. He was exhausted; his body felt like a worn puppet, a rag doll, bent and spent and useless now, totally useless.

Mozart and Monet were both said to have possessed an eidetic memory. It is associated not only with reading but also with auditory and visual recollection as well.

He'd read that, god knows how long ago.

Weird thing was, through all of the moments and all of the fact and the memories and the pain, Reid could close his eyes and feel his body disintegrating into dust.

This goes against everything I know scientifically.

It was fascinating, in a sick way, to be feeling like this. Reid was a man (or still just a boy) who lived his life knowing the rules of it. Love could be broken down into simple chemical reactions in the brain; so could fear, hatred, psychotic delusions, everything. Humans lived in their gilded laboratory cages so that he could study them, take notes, and maybe change the next batch for the better.

Reid knew it was impossible to dissolve or disintegrate or melt, but nonetheless he felt it, and he was too tired to try to quantify the reasons why. It had been one week since their case in Georgia—one week that had seemed like years and years of bright lights, examining tables, interviews, and the numbness associated with trauma that Reid had come to know so well. He could barely remember the aftermath of his kidnapping now; it faded into the background as the overwhelming horror of his ordeal took him over, again and again, until it seemed as though it had always been this way—that he had always been exhausted from his nightmares, that the team had always been trying to treat him with respectful but awkward pity, as though his world had always been this shattered and fragmented. The two bottles of Dilaudid rattled in his bag, heavier than he could remember them being originally. Reid had been too tired to use them; there had been too many people (or not enough chances) and he lacked the courage and the will.

However, he had the courage—or the cowardice—to keep them close

("Reid..."

He looks up into concerned brown eyes, crow's feet at the corners—and feels a hand on his shoulder like a dead weight.

"Are you doing all right?"

"I'm okay, Hotch, just a little tired."

"You should take a break; the team can get along without you, you know, and it's only been four days since we got back from Georgia. How did your psych evaluation go?"

"I'll be fine. I can still work."

A tight, restrained smile. "That's good."

"...Thanks, Hotch."

And all the time he's thinking: Hotch, Hotch, save me, someone, I can't sleep or eat or even cry. I have no mother to hold me and tell me that it'll be okay, because for the longest time I've been the one to hold her, to comfort her, and she has no idea, no comprehension, and to tell her this will kill her...)

Reid shifted in his seat; his foot hurt. He would always be scarred there, an ugly but small scar at the bottom of his foot where Charles had hurt him. Reid wondered if he could ever get used to that scar, if it would ever become just another part of him. It seemed so huge now. For a moment he wondered where his sock was, if he'd left it at the cabin, if it was still there.

Another thing that Reid remembered hearing—and as he remembered this now his hand fluttered to his forehead absently, pushing aside his bangs, checking for a spot or a scar—was the click-click-click-click of the handgun, pressed to his head, empty rounds firing imaginary bullets. The waiting, the tension of waiting, the apprehending horror of waiting for Raphael to pull the trigger that final time, to kill him. The waiting had made it worse.
Needing to choose one of the team to die.

Click-click-click-click, like the sound in the back of someone's throat when they're having a seizure—the sound of keys in locks that refuse to catch. That glottal, inhuman sound, like the ticking of a clock but louder and without a pattern. It pulled him from sleep, that sound; he lay awake in the night with his eyes open and glassy and the click-click of his heart pounding in his ears.
Reid looked out of the window again, pulling his hair back behind one ear. He was landing now; Andrea had put on the seatbelt sign. They hadn't spoken since he'd asked her this favour, and Reid was secretly glad. He didn't want to have to answer any more questions. He just needed rest; his place in Virginia was too quiet, too cold, and he couldn't sleep there anymore. JJ, Morgan and Prentiss had all offered him their couches and their support, but Reid had refused—why? He didn't know. He didn't care.

The landing gear, as it locked into place, said: click-click-click-click.

Reid closed his eyes.

Standing in front of her door, Reid held his breath for what seemed like a solid minute. He tried to listen for sounds inside, for a television or music or two people instead of just one. He imagined the embarrassment, the silly kid from the BAU disturbing her on a date, with a roommate...Reid sighed. Damn.

He knocked. Twice.

Elle opened the door as far as the chain lock would allow and peered out, recognizing Reid's face instantly. They stared at each other in silence, watching, remembering and comparing past memories to the new information they saw. Elle looked good, Reid decided. Her face had a glow to it, and where there had been deep, dark circles beneath her eyes was small blushing shadows now; she'd been sleeping better. Her hair was brushed and clean, and she'd lost a little weight. Healthy.

From the look of shock in her eyes, Reid could imagine what she was thinking about him.

He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her why he was there, but something in the back of his throat clicked, and Reid couldn't say a word. He couldn't find the words—for once, for the first time, he was completely speechless. It was a scary feeling.

(close your mouth try again.)

Reid cleared his throat and when he spoke his voice sounded old and weak.

"I—um, can I...come in?"

Elle nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you can."

She closed her door and Reid, in the dark of the hallway, heard her unlatch the chain, and then Elle's door was open and he stepped into the yellow glow of a lamp and felt something wash over him, which was not quite comfort or contentment but simply something else, something good, something right.

("Hey."

"Hi."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"I thought maybe ... you might want to talk."

"Don't go all profiler on me."

"Elle, you got shot in your own home, and then you came back to the BAU like nothing even happened. Thinking you might want to talk isn't profiling you; it's Psych 101. Please?"

"...After he shot me, he reached into my wound so he could write on the wall in my blood. I was barely conscious, but I could feel his hand in there ... and sometimes it's like I can still feel it…"

"Elle ... he's dead. You're...you're right here. You won."

"Then here's to winning.")

Reid sat on Elle's couch, a glass of rum on the coffee table in front of him—the only alcohol Elle had in her house. With his forearms resting on his knees, he stared at the floor.

"Reid…" Elle took a sip of her drink. "What happened to you?"

Reid drank some rum and the drink filled him with warmth, artificial but gratifying. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up to meet Elle's gaze.

"Elle…after you got shot, you told me that you could still feel the unsub's hand in your wound."

Elle's hand rested on her stomach for a moment, over the spot that Reid knew she would always be able to find; the scar, the place where she'd felt more pain that she'd ever thought she could feel. Her eyes were lost in memory for a minute before she responded, carefully: "Yes."

"What's it—what was it like, feeling it?"

Elle was quiet, thinking, remembering, and in her silence Reid could hear a click-click-click of her memories flowing together, forming into words.

"I wanted to rip my heart from my chest to make the feeling stop," her voice was soft. "I had this energy that couldn't be expelled; it made me shaky; it made me feel sick but I couldn't throw up. I couldn't get rid of it no matter how I tried…my heart felt like it was going to shatter into a million pieces on the floor."

Reid stared at his glass, swirling the rum inside it. "I…I have to—I wanted to ask…do you ever stop feeling that way?"

Elle's face betrayed her before she had a chance to think of a lie; with horror Reid saw it, that terror and fear that kept her up at night, that made her buy another lock on her door and that made her feel cold and compact with frightening loneliness. His heart plummeted to his feet as she bit back tears, looking down at her hands, and slowly shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "No."

Reid looked away, down into his glass, and felt Elle take his hand in hers; her fingers were like ice. He looked up again and stared into her eyes for what seemed like the longest time. Elle bit her lip apprehensively.

"Reid…can you tell me what happened?"

He shook his head slowly, back and forth. No.

I'm sorry.

Elle's hand tightened around Reid's and she smiled softly. "I'll make up the guest bed for you," Reid's eyebrows knit together in uncertainty and her smile widened. "You can stay here until you can tell me the whole story. You need to tell someone, Reid. You need to scream it out or else it'll eat you right up."

Grateful, all Reid could do was finish off his rum and nod a little. Elle patted his hand and filled the glass again.

"You'll get through it; I know you will, and it'll be okay in the end," she murmured.

"But—"

"I know what I said, and it never stops," Elle shrugged. "You can't take your heart out or make it stop feeling something that affected you. But you can make it better, Spencer."

"I feel so empty," Reid confessed, and the ice cubes in the glass went click-click as he set it down on the table. "I'm cold all the time. It won't stop."

Elle gathered him into a hug, sitting there on the couch, and Reid breathed deeply, calmly—feeling himself held and cradled and comforted.

"You can heal it," Elle whispered into his ear. "You can. It just takes time."

And over her shoulder, Reid smiled.

"I wait and I count to the last breath we take.
What we make doesn't make sense
What's a wolf without a pack?
Open your chest and take the heart from it…" –Emily Haines, "Winning"