heaven in a wildflower [criminal minds]

chapter ten - genesis

genesis (the beginning)

As the elevator door pinged open, a familiar smell and warm sensation blew over me.

"Hey," a voice said as I stepped off the elevator, I turned to see Emily standing in the hallway. "Oh, I missed you" she said taking me in a hug

"God I'm drowning in testosterone here" Emily sighed. I giggled as we walked into the office, everything was finally normal again.

"There's, uh- there's something I need to do" I said. "I'll be back in a sec" I smiled

I turned out of the office and into the hallway, walking towards Penelope's office. I opened the door and she spun around her chair "oh my god, you're here, oh I've­­­­­­ missed you so much."

She held me tightly in a hug, I winched slightly, still in pain from where I had been shot, loosening her grip, she apologized "I'm so sorry, are you okay? Esme?"

"I'm okay Pen don't worry- I actually came to talk to you about something"

"Is everything okay Es?" I sat down at the spare chair at the desk, fiddling with one of her fuzzy pencils.

"I never really got the chance to say thank you for coming over, and you know helping me out on the anniversary."

She reached over and held my hand, tracing outlines on the back of my hand with her thumb. "It's okay," she whispered.

We walked back to the office, hand in hand. Turning into the bullpen we were greeted by the whole team. Hotch walked over to us, still on the phone.

"Sorry guys, we have a case" we all walked towards the conference room. Hotch stopped me on the stairs, "It's good to have you back, Esme. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine thanks, Hotch, it's good to be back."

"We have been called into a string of murders, same MO, 2 gunshot wounds, one to each shoulder and a stab wound to a chest," Garcia says presenting the case.

"Why are we being called in?" Morgan asks looking up from his tablet.

"The M.E. confirmed that the same gun was used to shoot all of them, but the stab wounds were all made by different people" Garcia says wincing at the photos on the screen.

"How many unsubs are we looking at?" Reid asks flicking through his paper file

"We're looking at about 5 people, there are different levels of hesitation on the stab wounds, and some were made by left-handed people, others were right-handed."

"Could it be some kind of gang war?" Morgan asks. "I've looked through all of the victims' lives, nothing connects them." Garcia said.

"the MO is too specific to just be a coincidence, there has to be some connection, some kind of group.

Wheels up in 30" Hotch says leaving the conference room.

"You coming?" I say to Spencer as I walk across the bullpen to the kitchen. "Coffee to go?" He asks. "Sure," I reply.

"Oh crap" I hear Spencer say.

Hearing crashing from the kitchen I turn to see Spencer with a cut on his hand from a broken mug.

Grabbing a tea towel and I wrapped it around the back of his hand.

"Is everything okay? Reid?" Hotch asks.

"Can you grab me my med bag Hotch?" He turns towards my desk, grabbing the bag from under the chair.

"Hold this," I say to Spencer, directing him to apply pressure to the back of his hand.

I opened the med bag and pulled on some blue gloves and grabbed some gauze.

"Here, sit down" I say to Spencer, pulling one of the chairs out from the table. Lifting the tea towel, "You're gonna need a couple of stitches in that" I say

"fucks sake" he replied under his breath, half sighing, half laughing.

"Can you do them on the jet? I don't want to hold everyone up" Spencer says, I turn to Hotch, he nods approvingly,

"alright, come on clumsy ass"

We sat on the jet, I set a blue plastic cloth down on one of the tables on the jet, Spencer sat opposite me.

A desk light illuminates his hand resting on the table, "yep you're going to need 2 stitches" I say.

Lowering my voice to ensure no one else can hear "I can give you something for the pain, the stitches are going to hurt, but only if you want"

"no, but thank you" he replied.

After cleaning his hand, I sewed the needle, as I did the first stitch, he winced in pain and gritted his teeth.

I did the stitches as quickly as I could, "and- we're done" I say, tying off the stitch and placing a bandage over his hand.

"Thank you, they're pretty neat" he says

"come on- it's me, expect anything less?" I reply laughing.

"you're going to need 2 sets of IV antibiotics, I can give you the first set now, but the second one you'll have to get at the hospital when we land, I don't carry them on me." I say.

"Really?" Spencer sighs.

"Look Spencer I know you don't like hospitals, and that's a fun quirk about you, but do you know what isn't a fun quirk, being dead, because you didn't do your antibiotics."

"Alright fine I'll go to the hospital" he laughs.

I take out the needle for the IV, "hey, don't look okay? You'll be fine, just look over there" I point to a window opposite us.

Since Tobias Hankel I've always done things like this for Spencer, routine injections, IVs, basically anything that involves a needle.

I put the needle in, connecting the IV line to the bag that hung over his head.

"There we go, all done" I say as I cover the needle with his jumper.

He looks back down at his arm, to see it covered, he looks back to me and smiles "thank you".