What Happens Next

XII. Strawberry!

Another week passed before Reid finally got a call from Max. Henry drove off to school, and settled into his new apartment nicely. Sandy rebounded momentarily, before relapsing back into her depression. Grace got to go to the zoo, and JJ and Reid had not talked about her sleeping on his shoulder, but he did tell her about his urges, but not without a fight. JJ came down the stairs after putting Grace and Emily to bed and found Reid pacing. She watched his hand, which was grasped tightly around his arm,  twist aggressively so that his purple sleeve would scrape his skin.

"Spence?" she asked, worry seeping into her voice.

He stopped in his tracks and looked up at her with wide eyes. His fingers dug into his arm.

"JJ!" he exclaimed, "you scared me!"

"I'm sorry. Are you okay, Spence?" 

"What? Yeah- yeah."

"What's going on?" she pleaded, stepping forward to place a hand on his upper arm. 

Reid recoiled, rubbing his sleeve against his arm.

"Nothing! It's fine. I can handle it, JJ."

JJ pulled away, allowing the man the space he wanted. 

"Okay. Yes. I know you can handle it, but you need to talk to me too. What's going on?"

"Nothing is going on,"  he insisted, "nothing."

JJ stood, arms crossed, in front of her, her fingers clutching her shirt sleeves. She stared at the other profiler, afraid that she had allowed him to relapse. Afraid she had failed him again.

"That's the problem JJ. Nothing is going on. Nothing has changed. She won't pick up, she won't call me back and I can't deal with it!" He yelled, dropping his hand, only to bring it up and through his hair.

"Spence," JJ began, her posture relaxing, "you didn't-"

"No. But I wanted to," he choked, bringing his eyes from the floor to her own. Tears threatened to leave his eyes, and he bit his cheek intensely.

She watched his face. He was defensive, on guard. He was looking for a reason to leave. He wanted her to fight with him. He stared her down, waiting for her to make a move.

"Okay. That's good. Okay," her brain flashed thousands of ideas at once, "we need to make a plan."

He wanted to be kicked out. He needed a reason to give up.

"A plan?" he scoffed, "JJ, how do you plan to fix this?  Huh?"

JJ's face remained solid. She knew how to read and interrogate a stranger, doing so with a friend was far easier. She had far more information.

"You need to tell me when you're having problems before you get to this point."

"And if I don't?" Reid pushed. 

"You will die, Spence. You will overdose and die."

Reid's aggressive stance shattered, he crumbled into the man in which the addict inside of him had destroyed.

"I'm sorry." 

"I know," JJ stepped forward, this time accepting the man into her arms, "you have to tell me when things get bad Spence. You have to. You can't let it get like this, okay? I can help you."

"Okay," Reid mumbled, pulling away. He took a deep breath and wiped his eyes, "it's really bad right now."

"Talk to me," JJ forced a smile, guiding him to her couch and discussing a strategy for him to let her know she needed to be on top of him. They agreed on the color system: she could ask how he was and he could respond with either green, meaning 'I'm good;' yellow, meaning 'keep watch;' or red, meaning 'I need help.'