Mágoa // Spencer Reid

Chapter 55

"My self-healing lies in praying for those who have harmed me."
Marianne Williamson

A/N TRIGGER WARNING SELF HARM

Maria and Spencer spent the whole of the evening in each other's embrace on the sofa, every so often Spencer would open his mouth to speak before stopping- at first Maria hadn't noticed it and once she noticed it she picked up on it more.
"Spence, what's bothering you?" She spoke softly, and quietly. Before he answered he guessed what different reactions Maria would have- "Talk to me, Spence." She gave him a small encouraging smile. He took a sharp breath before speaking.
"I don't want to ruin this, but if I don't ask- well it will eat away at me." Maria's eyebrows raised slightly and she tensed slightly, she felt as if she knew this was coming, it was always going to come out- she had just thought it would take longer for him to ask.

"Ask away Spence," she spoke barely above a whisper now,
"When you were in the hospital, Garcia managed to get some information out of the doctor. It was more than they told us, but she mentioned a statistic about adults occasionally injuring themselves, and we were talking about you- she never really gave me a straight answer - well she never really answered me at all, but I think that I've always known- Ever since Maeve and you told me about your bad days- I think I've known. But do you?" It took Maria a moment to catch on to what he was asking, she was trying to digest everything he had just told her, she moved away from him on the sofa and sat at the other end to him, her feet now resting on his legs, he looked startled at first as though he had struck a nerve- which he had- but she wasn't mad. If they were going to work she had to be straight with him, she couldn't hide from it.

She took a deep breath and began to question how to tell him, she was going to beat around the bush, but this was something she needed to tackle head-on.

"Spence. What I am going to tell you, is really hard for me to talk about- and Penny is the only other person who knows about it. It might take me a while to explain but stick with me. And please don't cut in until I'm done or I will fall apart. Okay?" He nodded, she began fiddling with her fingers on her lap, "Ok. So as you know my mum killed herself when I was thirteen, and then my dad was pretty much sent to Vegas- Naomi and I had to live with uncle Bill for a while, and then when I turned sixteen I opted for Nay and I to move into the apartment above the coffee shop that Mum owned, by then Nay was thirteen- we both got jobs in the coffee shop, and attended school. Bill was always making sure that I could pay for us to stay in the apartment, but I needed money for Naomi's stuff, we were both teens so we needed materialistic stuff- as stupid as it was. So I got a job in a bookstore near to school, I worked ridiculous hours after school and on weekends. And then for reasons unknown to me, I became the target of everyone's bullying. They all told me to kill myself like my Mum did, I ignored it the best I could but it was really fucking hard. Then I met Jessie, she was my best friend for weeks, then she started telling me about how when she got stressed she cut her wrists." Maria paused for a moment to compose herself.

"And then one day the mean words and the torment got too much for me, so I went to the store- bought some razors, went home and made a cut on my wrist. That was the first time I ever hurt myself, but each day I looked at my wrist the cut seemed to be so obvious- I became so scared that someone would notice it that I put my razors in a box and hid them under the sink. The bullying only got worse towards the end of school and Naomi became a target, I managed to make them torment me and leave Nay out of it because to me she was still my baby sister." Her eyes began to water and Spencer offered his hand, she shook her head knowing that if he comforted her she would really start bawling.

"Each day that I woke up I cried for the rest of high school, I was so sad that I was still here. I just simply didn't want to live, but I couldn't leave Nay. The bullies made me feel so isolated and vulnerable- I had no friends except for Naomi. That was when I turned to hurting myself again, except this time I did it somewhere no one would see. This time I could get away with it because nobody would ever be seeing my legs." She continued to tell him about her high school, and how she almost relapsed when Naomi had died, "And when Maeve died, I nearly relapsed again after I almost slipped up talking to you about the bad days, I felt so guilty for telling you all of that when you were grieving- So I went home, got in the shower and pulled out the blade, and then someone knocked at my door. It was you, Spence. If you hadn't shown up at my door at eleven o clock that night I would've been a mess." She smiled slightly in an attempt to offer him some sort of comfort, "And then I went ages, not having too many dark thoughts- and then the transfer happened, I was put on a team that hated me, I was taken away from everyone I loved, and then shit happened." She couldn't bring herself to mention all of the crap Spencer did, she didn't want to make him feel responsible for her relapse. "And then Penny was at work, I looked at myself in the mirror and hated everything about myself. And I should've been stronger, I could've fought off the thoughts- but I was weak, I didn't care about myself. In fact, I felt nothing, and I should've been hurting but I didn't feel alive until I s-s-saw the b-blood." By now Maria had wrapped her arms around herself and the tears began flowing freely down her face, she buried her face in her arms and felt a violent sob shake her body, it was only now that she had said everything that she felt completely pathetic.

She felt Spencer move off the sofa so she assumed that he'd gone into another room to get his thoughts together, then she felt his arms wrapped around her holding her tightly, he placed a gentle kiss on her forehead as a single tear escaped his eye.

He felt so guilty for choosing Evie now, more guilty than he had at the time. He knew there was nothing he could do right now to fix what he had done, so he continued to hold her, allowing her to cry on him. Every so often gently stroking her hair, or planting small kisses on her head.

Once she had calmed down she apologised for being so dramatic,
"Maria, you are anything but dramatic. I'm so sorry." He took her hand in his and drew circles on her palm, he took a breath before continuing, "C-can I, s-see them?" He asked she thought about it for a moment,
"It's not as bad as it looks, please don't freak out." He nodded, slowly she rose from her seat and unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down just enough for him to see the silvery scars on her right thigh, he moved closer to inspect them- gently ghosting his finger over the slightly raised scars, she shivered at his touch and began to feel extremely self-conscious, Spencer seemed to notice and pulled away, standing up and pulling Maria closer to him so he could plant a gentle kiss on her lips.

For a few moments, there was silence until Spencer spoke up,
"In two thousand and seven, I was abducted by an unsub with split personality disorder- and I was tortured and drugged. I ended up leaving that case with an addiction to Dilaudid." He then went on to tell Maria the full story of when he was abducted by Tobias Hankle, Maria offered him comfort as he had for her. At least now they were both being honest with each other.