Aria (a psych fanfiction)

Chapter 10

Chapter Eleven: Tell Me How I'm Supposed To Breathe (With No Air)

"Shawn!" Aria ran to hug him, fighting the urge to break down, sobbing, and spill everything. Hang in there, she told herself, grimacing slightly at the pressure the embrace put on the bruises. "I missed you. I mean, I had fun, but I still missed you." She smiled, reaching up to smooth the thick scarf covering the red-and-purple mess that was her neck. Shawn ruffled her hair affectionately

"And we missed you, of course," Gus said, pulling a rectangular shaped, wrapped gift out from behind his back.

She oohed and aahed, as she knew they'd expect her to, and tore off the wrapping with exaggerated enthusiasm. Every movement took ten times the usual effort-every smile, every time she widened her eyes and clapped her hands together in childish delight, every bout of nausea she had to suppress. Deep breaths. "Catching Fire!" she exclaimed.

"I - uh, we, were in the bookstore and saw it over the weekend," Gus responded, smiling. "It just came out." Aria stifled a laugh - as if Shawn would ever willingly enter a bookstore in his free time - but she played along.

"Cool! I can't wait to read it!" She paused, fidgeting with the edge of the wrapping paper and avoiding their gazes for a moment. "So, any new cases?"

"No, but we're actually heading down to the station now to check. Have you finished your homework yet?" Gus answered.

She hadn't, but Aria simply smiled and nodded in response. Just like the good little girl she was.

"McNabb! Hi! Juliet, long time no see! Hey, Detective Lassiter, what's up?" Aria beamed at everyone she passed as she walked into the station, stopping at Lassie's desk, because if anyone had information about the case, it would be him.

Immediately, Lassiter sensed - not psychically, just through regular human observation - that something was wrong. The normally bouncy, bubbly teen seemed robotically peppy today, the smile forced. And "Detective Lassiter?" Way too respectful for the Spencers. "What do you want, Starling?"

Aria already had a planned response."Oh, well, I'm doing this current events research project for school, and I wanted to talk to you about that guy from the news from a few months ago, the mother-daughter killer guy. Any new developments?"

"No. He's been inactive for the past two months, but we're prepared to find any patterns in the event of new victims."

She nodded, playing the part of the studious young sophomore as she took notes on the little notepad she'd brought with her in her purse.

"Carlton!" They both looked up to see Juliet, looking troubled. "There's been another attack."

"Dammit," Aria heard him mutter under his breath. "Spencer! Guster! Let's go!" She followed Shawn and Gus to the Blueberry, her stomach sinking to her feet as she realized what had happened. I thought - I thought it was over...

The scene of the crime was the same as all the others: single mother and daughter, throats slit, knives missing. Somehow, being there made the pain impossible to ignore: the soreness, the nausea, the lightheadedness.

Deep. Breaths.

But that just made the pain worse. Okay, shallow breaths? Didn't help. The harder she fought to calm down, the closer she came to hyperventilating. And then she felt it - that stabbing sensation, right below her ribs, and her foot felt like it was about to collapse, and she couldn't breathe couldn't breathe couldn't. Breathe. The room swirled around her as she tried to walk out normally, to get outside, away from the dead bodies and from Shawn's observant eyes, but - oh, crap. Lassie was outside, and he was almost as bad. Not quite as bad as Shawn, but bad enough.

Can't. Breathe.

There was another stab of pain in her leg, and she panicked even more as Lassie walked over, a look of concern on his face. "Hey, Starling," he said gently. "You alright?"

She tried to nod, to say, "yes," or, "of course," or even "get the hell away from me," anything to make him leave her alone. But the words wouldn't come out. What she instead said was, "I...you're not supposed to care." Which was true. Lassie was never the sentimental or coddling type, and he wasn't supposed to care.

But she didn't get to see his response, because as she made one last effort to take a deep breath, there was a sensation like knives being twisted in her gut, and she blacked out.

Lassiter watched in confusion, then horror, as the sweating, panting, wincing girl's face contorted one last time in pain before her eyes rolled back and she crumpled to the ground. He just managed to grab her by the shoulders, and as the scarf came loose, he caught a glimpse of mottled purple skin underneath. What the hell?

He snapped back to reality. "I need an ambulance, stat!" he yelled, and the words seemed to spark a tornado of chaos. Shawn and Gus and Juliet came out to see what the fuss was about, and then Shawn was pulling out his phone to call Henry, and before they knew it, the senior Spencer had pulled up just behind the ambulance in his old brown truck. And then the paramedics rushed out, grabbing her from Lassie and rushing her into the ambulance, rushing her to the hospital.

When Aria woke up - somewhat - she was in...an ambulance? Oh, God, she realized. Not. Good. They'd figure out everything that happened, and - and -

She shrieked, and a paramedic rushed over. Aria struggled to speak through the oxygen mask. "I need you to tell the doctor at the hospital to keep my condition confidential."

A crease appeared between the paramedic's eyebrows as he frowned in confusion. "You don't want your medical condition shared with friends or family?"

"No, I don't" she said weakly, or at least she thought she said, because the world was still fuzzy around the edges and rapidly fading to black. "Don...dontellem," she slurred, succumbing once again to the seductive call of unconsciousness.