Chapter 24

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The minute you stepped inside your apartment, you headed to your kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. You could finally resume therapy, your last therapy session would be tomorrow. But with all your crap trauma that was brought back up from this case, you knew you would be in therapy much longer. The repressed memories from your childhood now played on repeat on the front of your mind. You didn't know how to treat the pain other than with alcohol.

After a few glasses, you started to ugly cry and then cried even more when you realized how depressing it was that you were getting drunk and crying alone in your apartment. After five glasses of wine in less than twenty minutes, you were no longer sad but angry. Rage filled up inside of you, you were mad at yourself for killing the unsub, you knew him, you wanted to save him.

You started to drink straight from the bottle now, chugging almost all of it. Your emotions took over and you let out a scream of anger and used your strength to forcefully throw the glass wine bottle on your apartment door. You sobbed as you watched it shatter against the door onto the floor, barely spilling wine because you had almost finished the bottle. You gripped the bottom of your living room glass table and flipped it over, causing glass to scatter all over your wood floor and a piece to scrape your skin above your elbow. You couldn't control your anger, you were frustrated with yourself, with the crappy life you had been given.

You continued crying as you leaned your back against the wall and slid down into a crouching position, pulling your knees to your chest. You were surrounded by shattered glass and a messy living room. As you sat on the floor sobbing, your door was kicked open and a tall man with glasses ran inside pointing his gun in your direction, only to lower it when realizing who you were. You drank so much you couldn't make out the man that stood in front of you, but you knew he was a familiar face.

He looked around the room concerned, he stared at the shattered glass and broken wine bottle before he approached you. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Before he could reach your side, your vision blurred and you felt yourself getting light headed. Whether it was from your frustration and cries or from the amount of alcohol you drank, your body couldn't handle anymore and you passed out for a moment.

Seconds later, your eyes began to open again and you saw the familiar man's face standing above you while you laid on your glass-covered floor. It was Spencer Reid, your best friend and colleague.

"Jo? Oh my god, are you okay?! What happened??" he said as he helped you sit up and noticed your puffy red eyes.

"Ww-what are you doing heree" you slurred your words.

"I was coming to check on you after our case. I noticed you weren't okay, so did Morgan. I saw you crying in your car in the parking. I wanted to check on you but I heard someone shouting and something shattering on my way up the stairs so I ran in here. What happened? Did someone attack you?? Who did this??" He talked fast and hoped for an answer soon. His face was filled with concern as he checked your body for any indication of an attack.

"You're bleeding," he noticed the glass in your arm and spoke with worry in his voice.

"You knowwww, I-I.. knew himm" you said with your eyes only half open and still very drunk.

"Who? The person who attacked you??" he questioned, eager for answers.

"N-n-nooo, silly! For a doctor you're n-not very s-smart" you laughed drunkenly at your own joke, amused by this situation. However, it was only funny in your eyes. Reid didn't find this funny considering the shattered glass and blood on your arm.

"You're drunk," he realized without question.

"Yes. I-I ammm" you laughed even harder and nodded. Reid was now sitting beside you looking at the cut on your arm. Your laugh faded and you felt tears threaten to leave your eyes. You didn't want to cry, but with the memories replaying in your head, you couldn't help it. Your mascara began to run and your eyes blurred from the tears. You felt like you couldn't breathe, you buried your face into Spencer's chest. He didn't hesitate to let you cry into his chest as he comforted you. He knew you were hurting but he didn't know why.

You stopped crying a few minutes later and released your head from his chest. You left some mascara on his vest, but you couldn't even muster up the strength to apologize for it. You hated crying in front of him, you hated being vulnerable. You both sat on the couch in silence and before he had a chance to ask you what happened again, your eyes closed and your body rested. You fell asleep.

You woke up around 2 hours later with Spencer sitting next to you. 

"Spence? Hey. You're still here" you smiled weakly. You were surprised but very grateful, you didn't want to be alone right now.

It hurt him to watch you like this, obviously he couldn't leave you. "You're clearly not okay. What's going on, Jo. I need to know. You need to talk to someone"

You paused for a moment. Although you knew you had to tell him, you hesitated.

"It's about the case... I-I knew the unsub," you said refusing to make eye contact because you know you wouldn't be able to hold your tears in if you did.

You were close to everybody on the team, but nobody really knew where you were from or anything about your childhood. Obviously Hotch knew about you being in the foster care system as a child considering the team does a background check on everyone, but nobody knew the trauma. 

"I had the same childhood as that man. I was thrown into the streets by my biological parents and put in the foster care system where I ended up with fathers who raped me and mothers who would use me as an outlet to their anger."

Reid stared at you with apologetic eyes, not knowing what he could possibly say to comfort you.

"There was one home where I had siblings who were also from the foster system. They were just as terrified as I was by the drunk father who would take a pan from the kitchen and hit us over the head for amusement. One of the kids was my age, he was there the longest–two years I think. One day, the father took me to his room and asked me to take off my clothes. I-I was 14 years old. The boy came into the room with a gun and pointed it at the father, his hands were shaking and I could tell he didn't want to shoot him but desperately wanted to protect me and the other kids in the house. Before the boy had a chance to pull the trigger, the gun flew out of his hands when the father punched him across the face. The next day, I was put into a different foster home and I never saw that boy again. When we found out the unsub's name, it sounded familiar. I knew him, Spence. It was him. We were put in the same foster home as children. He saved me that day from getting raped, and I couldn't save him today. I killed the once innocent kid who risked his life to save me. I-I killed him." You explained with no pauses, worried that you'll start crying or be too afraid to continue explaining if you had stopped at any point.

With tears in your eyes, Reid held you in his arms. You sat in silence for a minute before he knew what to say.

"I'm so sorry Jo, you didn't deserve that. You may not have saved him, but you saved a little girl and her parents today"

"He became a killer because he wanted to protect little girls like me, he thought he was saving them like he saved me. He deserved better." A tear escaped from your eyes.

"Look at you, Jo. You had the same childhood, but you chose to become a profiler for the FBI and save lives. He didn't deserve to die, but you don't deserve to blame yourself for his death. It wasn't your fault." Spencer assured you, looking you in the eye.

You take a moment to let his words sink in before you speak up, "Thank you, Spence. You always know what to say and you're always there for me. I don't know what I'd do without you."

He held you in his arms, comforting you for a few minutes before you were truly okay again. You felt so much better after talking to him and having him comfort you.

You separated from his hug and felt okay now. You were no longer upset, but now a little embarrassed, "I'm sorry I scared you. I was really upset and drunk and made a huge mess and broke my table and now i'm rambling and-"

He was staring into your eyes while you rambled. Before you could finish your sentence, his lips pressed onto yours gently and his hands were holding your neck as his thumb caressed your cheek that had recently been wet from tears. Suddenly, the only thing that mattered right now was him. Everything felt okay, and you felt safe.


a/n: miss girl.... first you kiss morgan and now spence? shawty want the whole crew shawty brave

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