Learning To Let Go

All Previous Disclaimers Apply.

Author’s Note: I just wanted to give the warning that this fic is meant to be a tragedy. Reid will eventually die. I hope that doesn’t put anyone off and I apologize if it does. Also, one more warning so that readers don’t come into the story with the wrong assumptions, Reid will not be paired with JJ in this fic. Reid will be paired with an original Male character. Like many other authors, I see Reid as gay. However, I don’t see anyone else on the BAU as gay and so I will create my own character for him to be with though it will not be the main focus of the story. I hope this doesn’t put people off either. I’m sorry if it does.

As always, should you feel the need to flame, please be civil about it. With thanks!

“How are you feeling?” It seemed like such a stupid question to ask. Jennifer Jareau couldn’t help the tears that filled her eyes. How was he feeling? He was dying. How the hell did she think he was feeling?

“Okay, thanks,” he murmured back from his position on the couch, lying on his back, a bag of frozen vegetables pressed against his bruising cheek.

JJ tried to hold them back, with all her might she tried, but she just couldn’t help it when the tears in her eyes began to slip down her cheeks. She scolded herself mentally, told herself to suck it up. There had been enough tears today without her losing control of herself yet again. She angrily wiped the fallen from her cheeks, then simply wrapped her arms around her waist and hunched over at little, trying to hold in her sobs, when she really looked at him. He just looked so absolutely young, so very young. He was mostly knees and elbows as he laid on the couch, like a teenager not quite grown into his body. The bag of vegetables could only hide so much of the bruising on his face where one of their mutual friends had hit him earlier in the day. It could have been worse, he’d told her, and he’d been prepared for it. He was a profiler after all. He’d tried to get a laugh out of her. But, all she could do was wrap her arms around him and cry. The bruise made it so that he looked so much paler then he actually was, too pale, the dark lashes sweeping his cheeks only adding to the illusion that he was simply made of porcelain. Maybe it would be better for all of them if he was. Then it wouldn’t hurt so much to know that they were going to lose him and there was nothing they could do about it.

They had gathered all together one more time earlier in the day, absent Morgan because he had backhanded Reid across the face, almost as hard as he could, just after Reid told them that he was dying. There had been nowhere to direct his anger and his grief because it was no one’s fault and so he had taken it out on the one who had made him start to hurt so. Reid had simply looked at him, understanding in his eyes, even as he put a hand to the cheek Morgan had struck. Morgan had looked down at his hands in horror and stammered an apology. He didn’t know why he did it. He was so sorry. Reid had tried to reach out for him, to assure him that all was forgiven, but Morgan had taken off, running as if the bats of Hell were at his heels. They would see him again when he had a chance to work through the anger, they all knew that. They’d spent a few hours trying to get some work done, while Garcia was researching, but they couldn’t help the fact that their attention kept getting drawn to Gideon’s office where he and Reid had holed themselves up after Reid had told them the bad news.

Garcia had put up such a fight when Reid had told them this morning. She’d been so certain that she could find something. There was always something on the net. New procedures, new treatments. There was always something. She would find it. She would make sure that he couldn’t die because it just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he should have to go through so much in his short life, come through so much, only to have something like this happen. No, the net was everywhere, and she controlled the net. She would find something. Reid had simply nodded, understanding her need to try. She come back out of her office hours later, with a stack of papers four inches thick about brain tumors and their various treatments.

But, when Garcia had come out of her office, armed and ready with so much information, Reid had simply pushed her gently into one of the conference room chairs and taken all of the paperwork from her, making a dramatic show of putting it all in the trashcan. Then, he’d sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her, allowing her to set her head to his shoulder while he told them all quietly what he had decided was going to happen for however long he had left to live.

“I spoke with my doctor about it for hours on Friday afternoon. No one can really tell me how long it’s going to take before I can’t function normally. Until then, I would rather just go on with life as if nothing is wrong.”

“But, Reid,” Hotch had protested, “Treatments . . . surgery or chemotherapy or something . . .” It had been the first time most of them had ever seen their self-assured boss at a loss for words.

“Will do me no good,” Reid had answered quietly, “The mass is too close to my brain stem. If they try to remove it there’s a ninety nine point seven percent chance that they’ll damage the cord somehow and I’ll end up living the rest of my life as a vegetable. Not quite appealing. And, as far as they can tell, the tumor is benign. It’s a common misconception that only cancerous brain tumors are dangerous. Chemotherapy won’t do anything. The cells are already dead. For some reason that the doctors don’t understand they simply formed a tumor instead of disintegrating into my body like normal peoples’ do. And no matter what they do now, the tumor will grow until it damages too much of my brain for my body to continue living.”

“But, it doesn’t make sense,” Emily had a hand pressed to her forehead and her eyes closed, “Why you? Is there some sort of physiological reason that they can tell? Just . . . give me a why, Reid. I need it.”

“There is no why, Emily,” Reid stood up and walked over to her, wrapping her in his arms, “Sometimes things just are. There is no history of tumors in my family, I’ve never had a truly traumatic head injury, and I definitely didn’t grow up around toxic or nuclear material. There is no why. There is so much about human anatomy that is still a mystery.”

“That’s not good enough,” she’d whispered, remaining stiff in his embrace.

“I know. It isn’t for me, either. But, it could be a day or it could be a year before my body truly starts shutting down. I would appreciate it if, until that happens, we could all forget everything I’ve told you today.”

JJ couldn’t hold back the sob that came when she remembered him telling them that this afternoon, and choked on it.

“JJ?” Reid opened his eyes and looked over at her, trying her hardest to hold back her sobs.

“You’re asking for the impossible, Reid,” she cried out, turning away from him, “We can’t just forget what you told us today! I can’t just forget.”

“I need you to try, JJ.” His voice was so low and quiet she wasn’t sure she’d caught it, but she turned around to face him anyway, holding back another sob to see tears running down his own cheeks as he sat up and looked directly at her, “I need you to try and forget because I need to try to forget for as long as I can. I can’t spend every day wondering if I’m going to have a seizure that will end everything. I want my last days to be like this last year. I’ve been happy, JJ. I want to be happy for as long as possible. I’m going to be living with this disease, JJ, for as long as I can. I’m not going to be dying from it until I have to be.”

She almost smiled, “Too much Broadway, Spence.” She didn’t try to hide the tears as she moved toward him, joining him on the couch.

“Lance would say there’s never too much Broadway. And you got the reference, so what does that say about you?”

“I don’t know,” She sniffled as he lay down again and she pushed hair away from his eyes, “Frankly, right now I don’t care.”

“That’s the JJ I know,” he smiled even as his eyes were closing. She knew he had to be exhausted. It had been a very hard day, for all of them. And he still had one more major obstacle ahead of him.

“I love you, Spence,” she murmured, kissing his forehead.

“Love you, too,” he breathed out, almost on a sigh, already mostly asleep. JJ looked around the apartment, much more lived-in in the last year and sighed when her eyes lighted on a picture she herself had taken. She just hoped he was strong enough to stay with Spence till the end. As much as Spence would want to say that he could do it with only the team, he would need him, probably more than all of the rest of them combined. So, she did something she rarely did anymore. She prayed.
Please let him be strong enough. Reid needs him.