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"She's going to be fine, she lost a lot of blood from the stitches, she's shaken up," the doctor said to Morgan and Reid. "You can talk to her, maybe try to calm her down."
Morgan clapped Reid's shoulder and he moved down the hall and into her room, her eyes closed and her eyebrows furrowed as she shook her head. She was anxious and paranoid.
Reid sat next to her, setting a hand on hers. She jumped, snatching her hand away. Her eyes flew open, looking at the person there. "Spencer."
"Hey.."
"Did you get him?" she asked him. "Is he dead?"
Reid nodded. "He's dead."
She let out a breath of relief, closing her eyes. "Good. That's good."
"Avery, listen, I'm so sorry this happened-"
"Not right now, Spence, not right now."
He leaned down in the chair and watched her close her eyes, struggling keeping them closed without picturing his face. In her room. Waiting to finish the job.
"Will you stay with me?" she asked him, reaching out and taking his hand. "Just for a little while."
He nodded. "Of course I will."
Reid watched the girl grip his hand tightly, letting out a breath and falling asleep.
When she was completely asleep, he quietly left the room, JJ approaching him.
She reached over and patted his shoulder gently. "It's over."
"Yeah, but how many others out there are just waiting for target us?" he glanced over at Avery's room. "Target people we care about."
"There's no way to tell," JJ said. "That's why we hug the ones we care about tightly and pray nothing bad happens to them."
Reid stayed there all night, ending up falling asleep in the chair next to her bed. He woke up to someone slapping his knee. When he opened his eyes, Avery was pulling on clothes, frantic to get out of the hospital.
"Woah, woah, what are you doing?" Reid asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"I'm getting out of here," she said, standing up and pulling on her pants. "I need a shower, I need my own bed-"
"Have you been formally discharged yet?"
"I don't care, I'm fine."
Reid convinced her to sit down and relax for just a second while he went and talked to the doctors. He managed to talk them into letting her go home. When he got back to her room, she was impatiently waiting to leave.
Reid drove her back to apartment and followed her up the stairs, carrying her bag. She spun around, snatched the bag from his hands, mumbled a "thanks," and slammed the door.
She needed her space, Reid understood that. He stepped away from her door, moved down the stairs, and went home.
Reid felt horrible. He felt like it was all his fault. Curtis targeted Avery for one reason, because she got in the way. Because the two were screwing around.
Avery was kidnapped and borderline tortured. She's the kind of girl that puts all her feelings in a box and shoves them in the top of the closet. She wasn't going to deal with this anytime soon.
She knew that it wasn't his fault. But seeing the look on his face when he looked at her, she couldn't take it. She felt like a victim. She hated feeling like that and Reid was just a reminder of what happened. What happened because she was fooling around with him.
She couldn't help but think that maybe, maybe if she would have minded her own business after the Nathan Harris case with the BAU, she wouldn't not be in the same position she was in right now.
She locked the door, all three locks, before moving right to her bedroom, getting underneath the covers and pulling them over her head. She sighed and closed her eyes, focusing on the coolness of her sheets and not trying to get too far in her head.
