Learning To Let Go

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, nor am I making any profit off of this work of fiction intended purely for entertainment.

Author’s Notes: This is my first Criminal Minds fic, so please be forgiving when things get OOC, which I’m sure they will. I love and appreciate reviews, but they are never a requirement for me to keep writing. I write because I love to write. If you feel the need to flame, please refrain from attacks on my person (attacks on the work are just fine if you don’t like it!) and please also refrain from using foul language. These types of flames do not get a point across any better than a civil flame. Thanks so much!

It was the headaches that first alerted them to the fact that something was wrong. Reid would come into the office in the mornings, pinching the bridge of his nose and shying away from the bright light of the windows. Before even saying hello or going to get some of the infamously horrible communal coffee, he would sit down at his desk, pull out the bottle of aspirin, and shake three or four of the little white tablets into his hand. At first, his second act of the day would be to go to the water cooler and get himself a cup to aid in the swallowing of the pills. Soon, though, they all noted that he was no longer waiting to get water to wash them down and was simply swallowing them dry as he sat at his desk. In reaction to this, they all seemed to come in a little bit earlier, making sure that they were there before he was. Someone always made sure that there was already a cup of water on his desk. Someone else always poured and prepared his coffee so that he wouldn’t have to get up for it, and someone else again would make sure that the blinds were closed, at least first thing because the headaches always seemed worse in the mornings. They weren’t even really aware that they were doing it. It just seemed natural to try to do as many little things as possible to make Reid’s life run a little smoother without him really picking up on the fact that they were doing them. It had been so hard to get the young man they all remembered and loved to return to them, that they didn’t want anything to jeopardize what they had just gotten back.

It was nearly four months after the Henkle incident, as they had come to call it, that they had really let themselves see that Reid was using the drugs that Tobias Henkle had given him in a distorted act of kindness, the drugs that he had taken from the lifeless body. It was Hotch who had found him, sitting on the floor in the bathroom stall, trying to stop himself from using, the tubing already around his arm, the syringe full. He had been crying, trying to talk himself out of it. In a rare breakdown of professional relationship, Hotch had fallen to his knees beside their resident genius, taken the syringe out of his hands, and wrapped his arms around the shaking form, pulling him close and whispering reassurances that everything would be all right, that they would make sure he got the help he needed, that they weren’t going to let him go through it alone. And then, he’d gently refused, and bent the needle when Reid had begged him for just one more high.

It had been the most difficult time in Reid’s life, getting clean. They had all known that if they turned him into a clinic, the Bureau would find out- they always did- and Reid would be released from field duty permanently. They also knew that the young man they had all come to love as friend, younger brother, and son would wither and die at a desk job, away from the surrogate family he had created for himself in all of them. So, they had all agreed, it would be the most difficult thing in many of their lives, but they would have to help Reid get clean, without the help of a clinic. Stupid, yes, they were fully aware of it, and dangerous. But, they either risked or they lost him completely for certain. Out of the two options, they chose to risk a little. Reid, in a lucid moment before the withdrawal became so bad that the only thing he could do was scream, agreed. He’d stayed in Morgan’s apartment. It was the closest to the office so one of them could be with him at all times, two or more once the work day was over. They made excuses for him, told their superiors that he was out with a truly nasty viral infection. But, they just weren’t sure how long it was going to work.

“It’ll work for as long as he needs,” Gideon had said quietly when they were all sitting in Derek’s living room, exhausted, but glad that Reid seemed to have fallen into a fairly deep sleep for the moment, “And if it doesn’t work for long we tell them he had to go see his mother because she hasn’t been doing well. What we have to decide, right here, right now, is whether or not we feel doing this for Reid is worth our jobs. Because if they find out, you know we’ll lose them and they’ll probably force Reid into a rehab, then a sanitarium when the rehab isolation breaks him, as we all know it will. I, for one, am going to stay. No matter what.”

“Jesus,” Morgan had put his elbows on his knees and set his head in his hands, “Didn’t really think about all that. But, I’m here. I’m going to be here. He needs us and we’re nothing without him. He’s the heart and soul of the team. Think about it. Think about how soon we almost fell apart when he was gone. What’s that going to do if we know we could have helped? We don’t help him now, we might as well all quit tomorrow anyway.”

JJ had simply nodded, too much emotion in her throat to speak, but enough resolve in her eyes that they knew they could count on her to be as devoted as Morgan and Gideon were confessing to be.

“It’s no secret that I have ambitions to be the director one day,” Hotch had said quietly, his arms crossed as he sat on the arm of a chair, looking down at the floor, closing off from all of them, “I want to be successful. This can ruin me. I’d rather be ruined and know we helped him, then be successful and want to kill myself every time I visit him in a mental hospital.”

“I’m new to the team. I don’t know you all as well as I’d like. But, as hard as it may be to believe, I love him like family, like I always imagined family is supposed to love each other, like my real family never did. I’m in it for the long hall, just like the rest of you,” Emily had been surprised and delighted when Gideon had reached out and squeezed her shoulder, just as she’d seen him do with the others, just as she had hoped he’d one day do with her.

“Holy hell, you all know I’m in,” Garcia had made them all jump as she had called out from the doorway, “I’m not a profiler, but I’m not blind or stupid, please don’t make those assumptions again,” She had held up a key, “Spare key under the mat, pretty standard. Ushering Reid out before noon, everyone leaving at the same time, not so hard to figure out, guys. But, only because I’ve been watching just as closely as the rest of you.”

The actual withdrawal had been the most horrible time in all of their lives. They all knew that it was the need for the drugs talking, but it didn’t stop it from hurting when the young man threatened them with taking his own life if they wouldn’t give him the drugs his body so desperately craved. It had been frightening to them, and even more frightening to him, when he began to have what they thought were seizures, just several hours after they denied him the use of his drugs. After some research though, they discovered that Reid’s body wasn’t actually seizing, but his muscles had to go through a series of spasms as they, too, adapted to the fact that Reid was no long taking a drug that was meant, in its original form, to stop pain. They had to get used to feeling again. They had been on the verge of calling an ambulance at more than one point when his fever had begun to soar, and he had begun complaining that he couldn’t breathe, gasping like he was having as asthma attack. Emily had been on the verge of panic one day, three days into the grueling process, before Garcia had arrived and done something they hadn’t expected.

She had simply ushered Reid into the bathroom, turned the water on as cold as it would get, and gotten into the bathtub with him, wrapping him in her arms as he sobbed like a child, and singing him into a fevered sleep. When he was finally deeply asleep, a real sleep, a healing sleep, Morgan pulled him out of the tub, dried him off and carried him to the bed in the only bedroom in the apartment. Then, after Emily left, he and Garcia had spent a quiet half hour sitting in the living room, unsure of what to say to each other. Finally Morgan did something he had been wanting to do for months and leaned over and kissed Garcia for the first time. But, Penelope wasn’t a fool by any means, despite how many times she had dreamed the exact act would occur. She had pushed him away.

“If, when all this is over, you still want to kiss me, then, by all means, go for it, sugar. Until then, hands off. I’m not gonna let you be with me simply because of a high stress situation that has us both looking for an affirmation of love and life.”

Morgan had been shocked. No woman had ever, in his life, turned him down, no matter what the situation. But, it had intrigued him. So, he had smiled and agreed. It had been a tense five days and seven hours- they had been counting- before Reid had finally awoken from a long night with his head over the toilet more often then not, his eyes completely clear and his hands steady without the aid of a drug for the first time in months. He’d taken one look at them all gathered in the doorway, coming to check up on him before they went into the office, and burst into tears.

“It’s gone,” he said quietly, through his tears. They’d left while Gideon had stayed to wrap Reid in his arms and rock the young man who had become so much like his son. It was a strange irony that they had all been with him at his very worst, delirious and screaming, but that they felt they were intruding watching his pure, emotional release. No, that was best left to Gideon.

Another week and a half spent in his own apartment, getting himself physically ready to go back to work, and he had come back to them, bright-eyed and ready to get back to the work they all loved. It was a struggle every day, to keep him off of the drugs they had worked so hard to get out of his system, but they did it together, and they were all the closer for it. There were still days, nearly a year after, when Reid felt the need for the drug so strongly that he asked them to keep him physically busy so that he didn’t even have the time to think about going to get something, but they were more than happy to do so as long as it kept him clean and the young man they all loved so much with them. So, it made them extremely tense when, nearly a year and a half later still, he began to show signs. They were not signs of drug abuse, they were all sure, but after Reid’s headaches persisted for more than two weeks they really began to get concerned.

“Are you okay, Reid?” Emily asked, quietly, while they were flying back from yet another case in yet another nameless town, in yet another nameless state. Okay, so maybe she was getting a little burnt out, but they had vacation time coming up, and she fully intended to spend at least three days thinking about nothing more complex than her tan and how long it might take her to get sick of surf and sun. But, for the moment, Reid was what was important.

“Sure, I’m fine,” he looked up from his book, a small smile on his face, “Why?”

“Your headaches . . .” she trailed off, not wanting to insinuate anything.

“I have an appointment with a doctor next week,” he assured her, “Hotch, Gideon, and JJ have already asked me. Don’t worry, Emily,” his voice had lowered, “I’m not using anything.”

“I know that,” she said quickly, putting a hand on his knee. She was surprised when he didn’t even attempt to pull away, but just kept that small smile on his face. He had changed, at least with them, since his withdrawal. He was much more open, not nearly so awkward. She supposed it would be hard to be awkward with people you had gone through so much with.

“I know you do,” he said, “Just like I know you had to hear me say it. We’re profilers, Emily.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she ruffled his hair, laughing a little when he pushed her hand away, “Smartass.” She murmured fondly, “Get some sleep.”

Reid seemed to take her words to heart because he laid down, saying a quick thanks when she handed him his neatly folded sweater so that he could tuck it under his head. She watched him for just a moment more until she was certain that he was sleeping, if fitfully. Who could actually sleep on the plane? The others gave her knowing looks, matching her concern, as she made her way back to her seat, getting ready to work on her reports. He said that he had an appointment with a doctor next week and that he wasn’t using anything. That would have to be enough. Yet, somehow, she couldn’t help the worry that lodged itself in her chest, couldn’t help the thought that things were going to get very, very hard in the very near future.