✓ | 𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗘 · ͟͟͞͞➳ spencer reid

CHAPTER 13 ━━━

# ! | CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- they're just in time to be too late

━━━ HOTCH, ROSSI, AND
Morgan are the first ones at the hotel. Morgan runs up the outer stairs to the second level, Rossi takes the back, and Aaron walks around the front. The hotel itself has a swinging 70's kind of look, a should-be charming retro aesthetic that was just plain sickening right now.

He walks past the doors, meticulously scrutinizing each one until he sees just a little splat of red on the banister of room 106. Holding his breath, Aaron rams his shoulder into the door and immediately poses his gun in front of himself. There's no need for that, though, as he takes in his surroundings. Two dogs dead on the floor, Meryl tied up in a chair, and Dr. Laing swinging from the ceiling, face a shade of blue.

Meryl coughs out a wheezing request. "Please, untie me and give me your jacket before you let them know I'm here. I don't want them-" she stops to cough up some blood, "to see me like this."

What a sight she was, wig sticking up in all directions, eyes bloodshot. Her porcelain skin was now caked with blots of yellow, green, purple, and blue. Dried blood lingered everywhere you looked.

Hotch can't even speak for a fear of breaking down right there, so instead he does as she asks, shrugged out of his navy and yellow jacket and cutting her free. As soon as she's zipped up, Hotch speaks into his communicator. "I got her."

In two seconds flat, Spencer is around the corner and in the room, perceiving everything all at once and to a degree Hotch hadn't. "Son of a bitch," he seethes once everything has set in. Red, hot, boiling rage cooks up in him as his eyes scan over Meryl's discolored form. Even more anger as he checks James' pulse, just to make sure. Dead. Without repercussion.

Meryl kisses Hotch on the cheek and then Spencer, both men watching as she ghosts past them to her dogs. There was no saving them, no hope. They were gone, the two closest things she's ever had to children.

"Meryl," Spencer speaks lightly, "you need medical attention."

She shakes her head. "I can patch myself up on the jet."

Morgan runs in alongside Emily and JJ and the three of them attack her in a hug with zero recognition of her physical state or the three dead things in the room. Murphy squeaks as she is reminding of her broken ribs and they immediately pull away, senses finally coming back to them.

"Oh my God," JJ murmurs, reaching out to touch Meryl's cheek. The younger turns away and grabs her heels off the floor, grimacing as she does so. She puts them on right as Rossi and the scene analyst team arrives.

"Bella, you're alright," Rossi nods, relief flooding his features. She hums, says something to a passing analyst, and then shrugs off the attention like a blanket. "Let's go home, please?"

When they get back to the precinct, Spencer watches as Meryl grabs a medical kit and walks into the bathroom.

"I should go help her," Emily quips, standing.

Spencer rises as well. "I could probably be of the most help."

Hotch walks past both of them. "As unit chief, I need an unbiased account of her condition."

Meryl raises her eyes as Aaron walks in, closing the door behind him. "I told them to lay off. Let's see it."

She drops the jacket and looks in the mirror, huffing out a surprised gasp. Meryl hadn't realized it was that bad. Hotch watches as she grabs the bottle of saline and gauze and cleans all the wounds on her stomach and ribs, then tends to the blood on her face. He offers his hand for her to squeeze as she filters out the deepest wound on her stomach.

"Is there surgical thread in the kit?" Meryl asks, spotting a needle and grabbing it. Hotch narrows his eyes. "I'm not sewing you up in a police station bathroom."

"Correct, Mr. Hotchner. You're going to leave and I am going stitch myself up in a police station bathroom."

The dark haired man pinches the bridge of his nose. "This is so, so far from protocol."

"I am a medical doctor, Hotch. I got it," Meryl reasons.

He glares at her. "You're not a pig."

"Actually," Meryl's eyes light up, "pig skin is actually remarkably similar to that of humans. Did you know that the first-"

"Okay! Okay! I yield. I'll leave. Do a good job, will you?" Aaron offers a smile and then leaves the bathroom.

ೃ⁀➷

"She worries me," Hotch tells the group as they pack everything up and wait for Meryl to be ready to go. She'd checked out her own ribs and claimed with her professional opinion that they would heal on their own in about six weeks.

"I can't possibly imagine why." Meryl's voice is returned to her normal tenor. Her long black hair is brushed and braided down her back, green eyes bright and dark lashes fanning around them. She wears a pair of grey sweatpants and a fitted long sleeve black shirt. Meryl wears some makeup, just enough on her face and neck to hide the bruising. "Didn't want Garcia to worry," she explains to the curious agents.

Spencer rolls his eyes. "Let me see your ribs."

Meryl raises an eyebrow. "You don't trust my doctory opinions, Reid?"

He offers a small smile, hazel eyes worried. "Not when it comes to your own health."

Morgan laughs a bit. "Trying to get her shirt off, pretty boy?"

Spencer's cheeks flush red and he grabs his bag and Meryl's. "Let's just get home."

His mind is racing at they get on the jet. She could've died. She was so willing to get herself killed because she still saw herself as disposable, huh? She still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that people cared about her, he thinks. That he cares about her. A lot.

This fire that kindled in his chest for Meryl had sparked when he wasn't looking for it. But now, as he pondered this attachment, anger at the girl bloomed right next to adoration for her. And before he could really think about it, he was looking into her eyes with a whole pile of things to ballistic words to hurl at the already injured agent.