Learning To Let Go

All Previous Disclaimers Apply

“So, basically, what you’re trying to tell me is that there’s nothing I can do, except take pain killers and wait?”

“I’m very sorry, Dr. Reid, but that is exactly what I’m trying to tell you.”

Dr. Spencer Reid, youngest man ever to be allowed into the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, was struggling.
He felt like he was drowning as he rode the bus to the stop nearest the FBI’s headquarters, the place he had gone to work, on average, six days a week for nearly five years. How was he supposed to tell them? Should he even tell them at all? What would happen when he did? Would they kick him off the team? Would they forget he had ever existed once they didn’t see him every day? He grasped his head in his hands, trying to stop the questions, trying to stop the voices, his own and the doctor’s who had such a horrible bedside manner. Tact had obviously been a word she had never heard. Not that he could blame her. It was probably better to hear it outright than to listen to a doctor stumble over what they were trying to tell you until you were so nervous and scared that you couldn’t even breathe. He definitely hadn’t felt that way while he was in the doctor’s office. He felt that way now, but he had already made up his mind as to what he had to do. He had to tell them.

He had had all weekend to move through the stages of acceptance, as his doctor’s appointment to discuss what had been found in his tests had been Friday afternoon and Hotch had told him to just take off early. They would call if they needed him, just like they always did. Miraculously, his phone had not rung once during the course of the weekend and he’d been able to adjust his thinking to what the doctor had told him his prognosis meant for his life. But, it hadn’t been easy. Denial had probably been the easiest. He had simply sent his scans to three other doctors that he personally knew from their dealings around the country. All had emailed him back with the same results, offered condolences, and a place to stay until it was time, should he need it. He had been polite in turning them all down. Then came the anger. That had been a fun one. He now had to replace several copies of his favorite books, a window pane in his bedroom, and the laptop computer he had thrown across the room. But, he wasn’t by nature a violent person, and so anger for him had burned itself out relatively quickly. Bargaining had gone even faster. He wasn’t even sure that he believed in a God, or even a higher power. Prayers probably had less effect when they went the way he’d been saying them.

“Dear God, or other nameless universal power. It’s me, Spencer Reid, Doctor Spencer Reid. Though, I suppose you know that if you are truly universal. I’m not even sure that you exist. There is compelling evidence to suggest both the presence and the absence of a higher power controlling everything, but, neither case has ever been proven to me personally . . .” And so it had gone, before realizing twenty minutes later that he still hadn’t even tried to make a deal with whatever higher power he had been praying to.

So, he had given up bargaining and moved smoothly into depression. For the first time in a very long time indeed, he had considered falling back on the drugs that his friends had done so much and risked so much to break him of. But, after checking his prescription and seeing that what he had been given was even more powerful than what he had used before, he had abandoned the idea. It really made no sense to try to do something illegal when you could do it perfectly legally. And, drugs made him lose himself. He had so little time left as it was that he didn’t want to be parted from himself at any time. Just that thought had sent him even further into depression. So, he’d taken the one bottle of hard liquor he kept in the whole of his apartment, one bottle of whiskey he had bought nearly two years before because a date had told him it was always good to have at least some alcohol in your apartment, still nearly full, sat at the edge of his bed, and drunk himself silly. He kept himself drunk until late Sunday afternoon when he decided that enough was enough, and dragged himself to the shower to clean up.

Did it mean anything when you moved through the stages of acceptance so readily, he wondered? Because he had taken only two and a half days to do so, spending less that an hour on two of them, had he really gone through them at all? Or would he have to go through them all over again when it really hit him? But, then again, hadn’t it already hit him?

He was thinking in circles again. It was something he hated more than just about anything. It got him and everyone else nowhere. It was going to be hard enough letting them know what was coming without keeping a clear and level head himself. He stepped off the bus, tilting his head back and taking a deep breath. The air was sweeter, the colors seemed sharper, despite the heavy pain medication in his system to keep the headache pain at bay, he was hearing things he had never let himself hear before. Of course, he knew that everything was exactly as it had always been, it was just his perception that had changed now that he knew what was going to happen, but he couldn’t help but be appreciative of the colors of the changing leaves, the sound of young laughter as two young boys chased each other on the way to school, the smell blend of natural and manmade that created the scent of humanity.

He walked slowly toward the office, about a block and a half from his bus stop, by city measurements, his hands in his pockets, savoring the chill bite in the air. How would the others react, he wondered? In a way, he pictured them as separate manifestations of the stages of acceptance in and of themselves. Gideon. Gideon would probably be accepting of it right away. He would know that Reid had already done everything in his power to confirm it and that there was no possibility that he could be wrong. Hotch would be the same way. Physically, they would stay away from him for a time, not quite sure how to handle him. They had dealt with wounds, they had dealt with his withdrawal, but they had never dealt with anything like this and they wouldn’t know if he would want to be touched, so for a time, they wouldn’t. He would be grateful.

Emily would slip into the slot of depression quite nicely. She’d had a hard enough time integrating herself into their already set little family, that she wouldn’t be able to simply move past the fact that there was going to be turmoil within it once again. Physically, she would probably take a moment to cling to him, hold him, look into his eyes, before letting him go and trying to work through it on her own. He would make sure to give her some time before approaching to talk it through, so that she could completely accept. He’d even try to make her laugh a little, though he doubted that he would succeed.

Garcia would fill the bargaining stage. She would insist that if he could just hang on she would find something. She was master of all information, she could go anywhere, be anything. He just had to give her time to do so. And she would probably pray to whatever god she worshipped as she used all of the tools at her disposal to try and find as much research and as many new procedures as possible that were being done relating to his condition. He would let her, it would make her feel better. Then, he would gently tell her what he had decided to do, and put his arms around her so that she could cry in his shoulder, which she would want to do.

Morgan would be the embodiment of anger without really knowing at all what he was angry at. He would direct the anger, probably first at the doctors, then at whatever higher power he believed in, the rest of the team for no apparent reason, then Reid himself, for allowing it to happen. Of course, Reid would point out that he hadn’t chosen for it to happen, but that would only make Derek angrier. He would probably push Reid, or punch him, a satisfying release to his anger for only a moment until he realized what he had done. Then, he’d be even more angry at himself, knowing that he had lost control. He would disappear for a couple of days, work though it, then come back and ask Reid, the younger man he considered his little brother, what he could do to help. Reid would hug him and tell him to just be himself and that would be all the help in the world. He would have enough people acting strangely about him that he wouldn’t need Morgan doing it, too.

JJ would be in complete denial. She was his best friend. Ever since the Redskins game, and then the Henkle incident, they had grown closer than ever. She wouldn’t be able to accept that she was going to lose him. Due to that fact, she would stay close, call all of the doctors he had called, demand to see the scans and have them explained to her. She would try to stay as physically close to him as she possibly could. And he would let her. He’d probably even let her stay the night tonight. But, starting tomorrow, there would be someone else at home who would need to know what was going on and JJ couldn’t be there for that. It was something private, just between the two of them. Knowing he would have to tell the last person was what broke his heart, even more than knowing he would have to tell his team.

He arrived at the office, took the elevator up to their floor, as if in a fog. He almost smiled when he saw that they had done as they had been doing for the past couple of weeks. Someone had put water and his aspirin on his desk. Someone else had gotten him coffee. Someone had pulled the shades so that the light wouldn’t aggravate his headache. Only, none of them knew that he was on something much stronger than aspirin now.

“Hotch,” He set a hand to the doorframe of his boss’s office and looked at the man sitting at the desk with a contented smile on his face. He had probably had a good deal of time to spend with Haley and Jack this weekend. Reid didn’t want to ruin that mood, but if he didn’t tell them now he knew he would lose the nerve and they deserved to know.

“Yeah, Reid?”

“Would you mind calling everyone into the conference room, Garcia, too, I have an announcement that I think I can only get through once.”

The smile fell, “What is it, Reid?”

“Please, don’t make me say it more than once. It’s hard enough.”

Five minutes later he found himself looking at them all in turn as they sat around the table, waiting for him to begin, apprehension and a growing knowledge that this was going to be nothing good in their eyes.

“As you know,” he began, “I went to the doctor Friday afternoon to get the results of my tests. They weren’t good. I’ve been having such bad headaches because there is a mass of dying cells pressing deep into my brain, causing it to slowly show signs of weakening and . . .”

“Reid, man, what you trying to say?” Morgan interrupted. Reid could see the fear in his eyes, in all of their eyes and decided to just get it over with. He tried to pitch his voice gently, to make it as small a shock as possible.

“I’m saying that I have an inoperable brain tumor,” he smiled, just a little, tears in his eyes, “I’m dying.”