Ineffable - S.REID

09

・゜゜・．ONE MONTH LATER .・゜゜・

Clara removed a bud from her ear and was met with the grating sound of plane white noise. She had, in the beginning, liked the sound that echoed through the metal tube but now it just aggravated her. She used music to block it out at every available opportunity. She had noticed the darkest of one side of the plane, which given that they were traveling in the middle of the day and were all well rested, seemed rather peculiar. She shut off her music and stood from her seat, walking over to the shadows where Spencer sat with his head in a book and an immensely furrowed brow. "Hey are you okay?" she asked quickly, having noticed the shaking of his leg now she was close enough. Concern furrowed her brow so it almost matched his pained one.

"Headache," he responded softly, trying not to move his head too much as he had just found a relatively comfortable position where there were no light beams from the opposing windows to hurt his eyes.

Clara dropped her voice to almost a whisper, as if that would help the pain. "Did you go to the doctor?"

"I'll get the results soon," he responded as he turned the page of the book, beginning to trail his fingers down the paragraph a lot slower than usual.

"I don't think all this reading is going to help you."

"It's important for the case."

"Spence," Clara protested softly with such a tone that he had no choice but to listen. He stopped reading and looked up, gently holding her one of the books in the pile that he hadn't made yet. Clara could never read as fast as he did but he so appreciated the gesture as the idea of reading was not one he got along with right now. "Have you got sunglasses? Miami's sunny," she asked after a few moments of reading had passed, the concern had only just popped into her mind.

He looked up and smiled gently, easing some of her concern away assume could still see some aspects of his usual self hidden away behind the pain in his eyes. "I do."

-

Clara stood with Hotch and Morgan as the three of them watched Spencer interview their current suspect who had a rather unsettling stare. Clara could not shake the feeling of discomfort that man settled within her. She and Morgan had both been supposed to join in with the questioning but Spencer rejected their help, only asking that Clara stay in the near vicinity through a conversation with just their eyes.

"Noticing any patterns?" Morgan asked Clara, figuring that her intense focus meant something different than it did.

"Not yet, though the way he's looking at Spencer is rather unsettling," she commented and the two nodded their agreement,all peering at the man being questioned behind the glass.

"Yeah, what is up with pretty Ricky anyway?"

She pondered for a moment whether he would want his current ailment to be broadcasted to everyone but from the glare from Hotch that she was on the recovering ends of, she knew she hadn't much of a choice. She sighed and crossed her arms in front of her, "Headaches...He's had them for a while but recently they've been much worse."

"Seems like you know an awful lot," Morgan commented quietly, as Hotch left to take a phone call, with a certain type of look that spoke for itself.

"He's my friend Mr Muscles," she shrugged and Derek laughed until the laughter was cut off by someone rushing into the room with a file that contained something he had clearly previously asked to see. Whilst Derek rushed to look inside the file, Clara did not move. She did not particularly want to see the contents of that file, having the distinct feeling that it would be bad, and instead focused on the tapping now echoing from the interview room. The rhymed thudding that increased in volume as time went on was soon combined with chanting. Clara knew various languages, growing up in a bilingual household made it easier to learn new ones and she had to pick up hobbies undercover or she'd drive herself insane, but she had absolutely no idea on any of the words that spilled out of that man's mouth. Morgan, who had previously rushed into the room with the file, and Spencer looked just as clueless as she did.

"Any idea what he said?" Hotch, who stared in bewilderment, asked as the chanting stopped.

"I've never heard anything like that in my life," she murmured the second that all the profilers entered the room, all looking confused and rather astonished at the turn this case had taken in a mere few hours.

-

Clara sighed out of relief when Spencer walked out from the house in front of them all completely unharmed from his momentary hostage situation with to it his best on - she would calmly warn him against doing that again in the future at a time where he felt better. He drifted straight toward her, holding a bracelet in his peculiarly tightly clasped hand. "What's that?"

"Protection, apparently," he responded softly, wary of the people around them that would and could overhear. Thankfully they were all too busy with their various jobs surrounding the previous arrest.

She frowned softly, looking at the bracelet intently, "Protection from what?"

"The ghosts in my head," he replied with a chuckle, that to her was clear evidence that he did not believe a word of what the man in the holding cell had said.

"Your headaches?" She was more partial to believing him, having been brought up slightly superstitious by her own mother. Clara's Ma had a herb for every situation and dozens of various rocks and crystals to match, it would be impossible to grow up in such a household and not adopt certain superstitions of her own.

Spencer shook his head, "There has to be something physically wrong with me, not something superstitious."

"That may be the case but if there's one thing my Ma taught me it's that if someone ever gives you any sort of protection in life you take it because it's meant for you in that moment," she responded and soon rolled up her sleeve, displaying a thin frayed dark purple bracelet that he had noticed before but just assumed it was an ordinary piece jewellery. "I got this when I was undercover from a psychic who thought I needed it, two days later there was a shootout where pretty much everyone present died. I got out with a bruise and a bullet in the shoulder, not life threatening whatsoever. Got it pulled out with a pair of pliers and attended the meeting the morning after completely fine."

He raised a brow, internally wincing at the first piece of information he had been given about her time undercover. It was not a good thing to start with and set a rather dark tone around the situation, one which he had been trying to avoid previously. "You believe a bracelet did all that?"

She voiced her deliberation via a single sound that told him all he needed to know. "Not exactly. But there's no harm in it. You never know, it could be just the thing you need," Clara responded quickly as Hotch had called her over to do another necessary job.

As she hurried over, Spencer slipped the bracelet onto his wrist that contained his watch and Clara's hairband. He didn't believe it would have an effect but has been somewhat convinced by her.