Coming Home

#6: The Holy Trinity

Part 6

Spencer~

Even in her sleep I could tell how uncomfortable she was being back here. Whenever I used to ask her about why she hated Maine so much she always brushed me off - "i have a history there thats all"- after a few months I decided not to push it anymore. I knew better than anyone that pushing would get you nowhere, she would tell me, in time. Penelope sat in the chair next to my bed with two laptops and her phone out as she tried to communicate with the team from the room. Every few minutes she would look up at me and give me a wide eyed smile before handing me another Jell-o. My favorite.

"Hey Garcia?"

"Yes my dear boy?" I laughed weakly before and looked over at my sleeping girlfriend.

"How hard would it be to convince you to help me sit up?" she laughed at me before stopping abruptly.

"Are you being for real? Oh no. no way. Yeah no way. I don't want to get killed by the sweet baby angle that is about to be my newest best friend. No thank you." I gave her a pout but agreed. For now I would just have to live with the short glances I got of her when I could get enough strength to briefly lift my head.

"Hey Spencer?" Penelope shut both of her computers to look at me.

"Does she usually do that in her sleep?" immediately I started to panic. The cot was directly across the room from my bed, and with the way my body was positioned I couldn't see whatever the "that" Penelope was referring to was.

"What do you mean? Is she alright? Help me sit up!"

"Woah, woah, woah. Hold on a second, no need to panic, she's not like dying or anything, just twitching. Weirdly."

"What do you mean weirdly! Like a seizure kind of weird or a muscle twitch Garcia?" I scrambled trying to sit up but the wave of pain that I immediately felt discouraged me.

"Garcia, if you help me sit up, i'll- i'll tell you every single detail of how I first met her, and I'll throw in a new glow in the dark piglet for your desk!" She did a classic sounding 'Garcia Groan' but finally grabbed the remote for the bed and tilted me up just enough to see the cot across the room.

I had seen her do this before. We called it her, 'Holy trinity of anxiety' - "I was doing it again last night wasn't I?" "don't worry about it Soph, it's not a big deal okay?" "will you at least tell me what it is?" "It's just something your body does to cope with the anxiety that you feel even when you are asleep. You only do it when something is really really bothering you, that's how I knew I needed to make you pancakes today"- After the first time I noticed her doing that in her sleep when we started dating, she had done it maybe three times total. The first was when I had just come home from the first case I had taken while we were dating, the second, was the night after she found out her childhood best friend killed himself. Her personal 'Holy trinity of anxiety' was when she combined three of her worst nervous tics, all at the same time, while she was sleeping. Her three worst are common ones, but also the hardest to control, leg tapping, cheek biting, and either picking relentlessly at her fingers, or digging her nails into her palms.

This wasn't just because I was shot, this was what she did whenever I mentioned her home here when she was awake. Something happened here. Something so bad that she wouldn't tell me what. I hated it. The not knowing. It was something that I rarely have to deal with. One of the reasons that I constantly like to read and learn is so that I never have to be in a situation where I don't know anything. The only two areas that I was constantly stumped by were social interactions, and my girlfriends past.

Sophie~

When I woke up on the cot in Spencer's hospital room my first thought was that I must have dreamt it all. As soon as I shook that off after seeing the docks of Portland out the window, my second thought was to really check on Spencer. I had been in such a panic all of yesterday the only real information I was able to retain was that he was shot, but he was alive. Now was time for my medical degree to come in handy.

"Why are you all looking at me like i'm a lost puppy?" As soon as I sat up Penelope closed her computers and Spencer slightly tilted his head and smiled.

"Wait. a damn. Minute" I immediately noticed that Spencer was sitting up and Penelope was trying to cover the bags of dum dum wrappers and empty jello packs at her feet.

"Spencer, who helped you up?"

"Ummmmm, I don't know what you mean?"

"Spencer Reid. For a profiler you are the worst liar in the world. And Penelope, I know you did it, but I don't blame you because I know exactly how persuasive his eyes are" she sighed and gave me a big smile.

"Right? I mean look at them, it's a crime!" Spencer blushed and looked back at me with a face I had seen plenty of times. It's how he looked at me whenever he promised he would be there for something and had to leave. It was his guilty face.

"Spence, what's up?"

"I'm just sorry." my shoulders dropped in response to hearing his voice, much louder and much more normal than last night.

"Baby there's nothing you could have done, we all know that."

"I know its just, I know how much you hate it here, and I never wanted to worry you so much that you did a sleeping holy trinity, and now i'm afraid that you'll never not see me as hurt, and what if i just become a reminder of the pain you feel, and-" I shut him up by placing a very gentle kiss to his lips as I sometimes did when he went into rants.

"Well, looks like you two have things covered, i'm going to the cafeteria to give the team some updates" Penelope grabbed her purse and phone and left the room with a few excited glances back at us.

"So I was doing a sleeping trinity?"

"Yeah, a bad one"

"Did you tell Garcia about-"

"No, I would never, not unless you want me to."

"No, the only person who knows i'm here so far is my mom so-."

"Will you tell me what happened now?"

"Later. I just need to adjust for now" I didn't want him to be disappointed by me not telling him. But I needed time. Well, more time. For now I needed to focus on him, and get both of us out of here. He moved toward the clothes bag I bought for him that was hanging on the edge of his bed.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

"I hate these gowns you know that"

"That does not give you a free pass to move around, here let me help you" I could tell that the slight movement toward the end of the bed was enough to make even Spencer (who always refused pain medication because of his past addiction) want double doses of morphine. He groaned when I helped him take the loose gown down from his shoulders and I expertly guided the large sweatshirt over his head.

"I can do it-"

"Hey, baby, I'm here for a reason, and I've looked at your chart enough to know how bad that shoulder must hurt. No more of your trademarked 'I'm the brilliant Spencer Reid and I don't need anyones help' crap, okay? Eventually he relented and seeing him in his own clothes again brought me a new level of peace that just a few hours ago I thought I would never feel again.

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*I do not own any CM characters