Coming Home

#3: Heading Home

Part 3

Sophie~

No, no no no. Even after the dial tone came through I held the phone to my ear practically screaming his name into it. I knew he couldn't possibly hear my voice but I needed to try. After I finally put down my phone I sat frozen for god knows how long.

Would they call me? As far as I know they didn't even know he had a girlfriend. He wanted to keep me a secret. He wanted to be sure that he wouldn't be putting me in danger by telling them. Should I call Hotch? That was the only number Spencer gave me. -

"It's just in case okay?"

"No way, nothings going to happen to you"

"Please Sophie, just in case"

"Fine. But nothing's going to happen" -

Still I sat trying not to play the sound of the dial tone in my head as I searched for some answer of what to do. Please god no. The simple thought of what might have happened made me nauseous.I ran to the bathroom just in time as I emptied my stomach of what little was in it.

I slid down the bathroom wall and sat with my head between my legs on the cold tile floor. -

"Hey. You okay?"

"This stomach flu is no joke" he let out a weak laugh and sat on the floor next me with a glass of ginger ale in his hand.

"You know, the ginger root is actually quite helpful in relieving nausea but ginger ale is quite different because of the added sugars"

"Very helpful Spencer" -

I looked up, but this time there was no Spencer to walk in with facts and ginger ale. This time I was alone. Panic set in again and I felt like I was glued to the floor. I was hyperventilating as tears streamed down my face. I couldn't stop it. Usually Spencer was the only one that could help. -

" you're okay Soph" my breathing was still fast as he sat beside me on the edge of the bed.

"I'm here, it's okay" he put a hand on my back and rubbed soothingly as I sobbed. We sat like that until my breathing slowed and I fell asleep in his arms -

A ring pulled me out of my stuper.

"Hello" I cleared my throat as my voice sounded heavy and tired.

"this is agent Jareau with the BAU"

And just like that my breath stopped.

"JJ? Is Spence okay? I was the one on the phone with him and I heard a bang, and I think it was you in the background, he always tells me about you, I know he's your best friend, and is he-"

"He's not dead" That should have relieved me but I could hear the apprehension in her voice 'he's not dead' yet.

"Where is he? Should I get a flight out or will he be brought back to DC, I have family in Maine, should I call them and ask them to check on him or tell them that i'm coming to stay, am I even allowed to do that or is that-" I found myself rambling just like Spencer and could hear in JJ's slight laugh she had heard this type of rambling before.

"It's like there's a second one of him. We just got him to the hospital and they pulled him into surgery, but from what I know he won't be stable enough to transport for a while."

I could feel myself shaking and didn't know quite what to do.

"He told me about you. Well, in bits. When I was with him in the ambulance he told me as much as he could. Sophie, he wants you to know-"

"No, he can tell me himself when he wakes up. I'm on the next plane over. JJ, where was he shot?" Her voice wavered on the last question like she wasn't quite sure if she should tell me. Damn him. He probably told her I was a surgeon.

"He told you i'm a different kind of doctor didn't he?"

"Yeah, he did. You'll find out when you get here I promise"

I hung up abruptly and threw barely a single change of clothes into a bag along with the blanket from our couch. Before I threw myself out of the apartment I grabbed a Caltech sweatshirt of his that I always wear at home and a single pair of sweats for him. At least now if he- no, not thinking like that. I grabbed a taxi and headed to the airport without a single thought besides Spencer running through my head. I see gunshots in my line of work all the time.

I'm a trauma surgeon, I have seen some of the ugliest injuries you can get. Gunshot wounds are some of the worst. A tiny bit of metal that tears through flesh and organs and causes nothing but destruction. I guess it's no wonder that I worry about Spencer all the time, because I have seen what havoc the injuries from his job can cause. I know every single long term condition that can be caused by a forgen object entering a human body, and I was not at all pleased knowing that all of that was now a possibility for Spencer. That is, if he survives.

I could start to see the blinding lights of the DC airport come into view and I could hear the jets overhead. I barely let the cabbie park before I threw an uncertain amount of cash into the front and launched myself from the backseat. No way was I going to waste a single second more than necessary. The next flight out to Portland was within the hour but even that felt like too long to me. I paced back and forth in the airport and when it was getting close to takeoff I bounced my leg so fast in my seat that the man next to me must have thought I was crazy. Never have I felt so unbothered by the stares of people around me. In this moment I had a one track mind that was focused entirely on getting home.

Once I got into the air I sent a text to my mom - mom, i'm sorry for the short notice but i'm on my way home- I thought about sending another asking her for a ride to the hospital but I received a new text from an unknown number. - Its JJ, i'm sending Emily and Morgan to pick you up from the airport, ride won't be long, he's in Portland- another set of news that should have given me relief, not only was he still alive in this moment, but he was only moments away from where I was going to land, and on top of that I would be getting an FBI escort to his hospital room. But on the other hand, coming from someone who lived in Maine until college, I know that Portland is where we have our highest level trauma center. They sent him to Portland because it's bad. But not just that, after years of saying that I would never go back home, to Maine, here I was, an hour into my two hour long flight, about to land in the very place that I called home, the very place I sore I would never go back to.

~~~~~

this part will be updated on my tumblr tomorrow morning I promise!

*I do not own any criminal minds characters