An Imitation of a Light - Prologue

[weaselett]

An Imitation of a Light
Written for cm_bigbang
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Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.
Joseph Roux

Spencer Reid was many things, but he liked to believe that a coward wasn’t one of them.

Over the years, he’d faced down bullies, in the school yard and in the street, negotiated with murderers, been tortured, so many things that a coward would never be able to face. The only problem is, even now, he still doesn’t like hospitals.

It’s not something his team mates seem to notice but then, he guesses most of the time he’s been in hospitals with them, he’s either been working or injured. They’ve never seen him on his visits to his mother. Never seen the way he hesitates in doorways and holds his bag in front of him like a shield.

If his mother is having a good day, it’s easier. She knows how to make him relax. The other times, he’s always surprised when he makes it to her side.

But this, this hospital, this mental ward, it’s different. Unexpected.

Spencer makes his way slowly through the halls, ducking his head when the nurses throw curious looks in his direction. He knows he’s taking the long way; he could have just walked through the lobby, to the bank of elevators and ridden straight up to where he was heading. The truth is, he needs the walk, needs something to distract himself from thinking, as difficult, impossible, a task as that is.

He still reaches the desk before he’s really ready. The nurse on duty smiles up at him, sliding the sign in sheet across to him. She doesn’t need to ask who Spencer has come to see, this isn’t his first visit, though he will never stop hoping that it might be his last.

“It’s been a good day.” Nurse Aikens offers quietly, and Spencer nods automatically. Intellectually, he understands what that means, but emotionally, he finds it hard to see how any day can be a good day. There’s a moment’s pause, as she waits for him to respond, before she shifts in her seat, raising a hand as though to push hair out of her face, “Nurse Saunders is changing the bedding, he should be done soon though.”

Spencer nods again, hesitating before finally picking up the pen and signing the sheet. He takes a minute to lower the pen, then slides the clipboard back to Aikens before he turns and starts the short walk to his final destination.

The fourth door on the right, a private room, with a view over the small area of green behind the hospital, rather than the car park. It’s an improvement on the last room, which was smaller, and had smelled much more strongly of disinfectant.

Spencer stands outside, taking advantage of the window, grateful that the blinds haven’t been closed. He wants to judge how he’ll be received before he enters, or at least that’s what he tells himself, just as he does every time he hesitates in the doorway watching his mother.

Nurse Saunders, who Spencer recognises from his previous visits, chats idly to his patient as he changes the sheets. He doesn’t seem to mind the fact that it seems to be an entirely one sided conversation, flashing the odd bright smile at the man in the window seat, as though he’s had a reply to one of his questions. Spencer wonders, idly, if the man makes up answers in his head, imagines what the other half of the conversation might be. A way to make your reactions look real, to not seem forced in the face of the constant silence.

Spencer has only made it into the room once.

Spencer sighs, gripping the strap of his bag as he watches the man in the window seat, long legs drawn up to his chest, chin resting on his knees, eyes staring blankly into space. The curtains are open, and it’s still light outside, Spencer can see the trees that edge the green, the leaves turning brown. It’s a nicer day than it has any right to be.

Saunders looks up and meets Spencer’s gaze, hesitating briefly before continuing his one sided conversation. Spencer knows he isn’t the first person to spend visits watching, never entering the room. He also knows, too well really, that it isn’t healthy.

The truth is, Spencer has spent so much of his life wondering if he was going to take after his mother, he’d never really spared that much time to worrying about a similar fate for those close to him. Even with Gideon, who had already been broken when Spencer had first met him, Spencer had never seriously considered it.

Now, with the distance of years, Spencer knows that he was in denial, that he felt betrayed when Gideon left; another person in his life who had failed to stick around, who hadn’t been strong enough. It wasn’t fair, but then the way Gideon had left hadn’t been fair to anyone.

Spencer’s knuckles turned white. He’d considered it, even suggested it out loud, that Gideon leaving had been the beginning, but Rossi had won out with reason; this wasn’t something they could have predicted. There hadn’t been any signs to spot, no warnings, nothing they could have done.

Or at least, almost nothing. They could have been quicker, could have gotten there sooner, been quicker to notice; the list got longer the more Spencer thought about it.

There was always something to be done. It was just rare that you got a chance to do it.

This time, they hadn’t had a chance. The choices they had made, had led to this, and there was nothing to be done about that. No amount of thinking was going to change the past. It was just going to take a while for Spencer to accept that.

He sighed again, squaring his shoulders. Aikens had been right, it was a good day, or at least better than the others Spencer had experienced. Today, there was no screaming, no yelling, no uncontrollable anger. There was nothing. For the first time in weeks, there was nothing.

If there was a day for Spencer to make himself walk into the room, this was it. No more avoidance. He was going to face this, make up his own answers to his own questions, laugh at the imagined responses, smile like he meant it.

Today, Spencer was going to stop being a coward.


-
Part One