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Small towns were always a nice change of pace from the bustling city, in Emily's opinion. It was too bad she only ever experienced them through her job. It would be nice to visit when she wasn't on the clock. Pretending that she wasn't a Fed on a vacation that would probably be cut too short.
Still, she would take what she get of an escape from the loud, stressful bustle of city life.
One of the downsides, however, of a small town had made itself known to her during this particular case. A cold had been spreading around the community and the local hospital didn't have enough room for everyone who was sick. It meant that a lot of people were simply staying home to recover when possible. But many of them couldn't afford to do that, and were still out and about the town, coughing and sneezing while going about their daily lives.
No one working in the precinct was very sick – the cold had made its round here a couple days ago – but several of the townspeople the team had spoken to over the course of the case were.
Despite the numerous interviews, progress had been slow, and the team had been discussing the profile for the better part of an hour by now.
Finally, Hotch sighed and rose from his seat. “We're running out of time. We need to deliver the profile.”
Chairs scuffed against wood as the team also stood, leaving the conference room to prepare for the briefing. Emily was one of the last ones, and a small cough brought her attention back to the table. Reid had risen from his chair, his crutches tucked under his armpits, and he held a single fist against his mouth as another cough shook its way free from his chest and up his throat.
A brief moment of panic, as her mind brought her back to the Anthrax attack only a couple months ago. She hadn't been there at the house, nor had she talked to him on the phone during the case, but she'd gone to visit him in the hospital after he'd woken up.
Even with the antidote helping him recover, he'd still had a nasty, deathly cough. It had unnerved her, listening to the way his breath rattled in his throat and his lungs attempted to turn themselves inside out. But Dr. Kimura had been sure that he would make a complete recovery.
So Emily shoved her panic into a little box and shoved that box into the back of her head, never to be opened and rarely to be thought of.
Reid let out one last cough, and Emily mentally shook herself for being so worried. It was a light cough, like one that was in response to inhaling a bit of dust or pollen. One that didn't even sound like it hurt at all, much less one that had been torn from lungs poisoned by Anthrax.
“You okay?” she asked.
Reid met her eye and smiled awkwardly, in his familiar endearing manner. “Yeah, I'm fine. Just a tickle in my throat.”
That concern still tugged at the corner of her mind. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” he said, hands falling to grip his crutches. The click-clack against the wooden floors was a familiar sound by now. “Probably just caught the cold from someone. I'll be okay.”
“I'm sure I can track down some cough medicine for you real quick.”
He hesitated, and Emily was sure he was about to decline, but then his hand flew up to cover his mouth as another cough escaped. “Sure.” He agreed, shrugging casually as if trying to dismiss her concerns. “If it's not too much trouble.”
“It's not,” she quickly cut in. “I'll be right back.”
A small cabinet located in the bathroom contained a first aid kit and a few over the counter medicines for various common ailments. She quickly grabbed the tablets of cough medicine and rushed back to where Reid was propped up on his crutches, coughing into his hand again.
The foil ripped easily, and she handed him the pill. Wordlessly, he popped it into his mouth, and she handed him his coffee to wash it down.
“Thanks,” he said, moving to leave the conference room and join the rest of the team, physically dropping the subject.
“You sure you're okay?” Emily asked instead.
He tucked a wayward lock of his hair behind his ear. “Yeah, I'll be fine. It's just a little cold.”
Emily resisted the urge to bring her fingers to her mouth and start chewing. “Yeah, a little cold only a couple months after,” she paused, looking around the station, “well, you know. Maybe you should go see a doctor.”
Reid's lips twitched in a way she recognized meant he was about to make a smart-ass comment.
She beat him to it. “Don't pull the ‘I'm a doctor’ card. You've already tried that.”
He laughed, low and quiet and barely there. “I'm fine, Emily. I promise. We need to deliver the profile.” With that, he finally maneuvered past her, his crutches clacking on the wooden floor.
Emily watched his back for a moment, before following.
A stool had been pulled out for Reid to sit on during the delivery of the profile, and he was positioned towards the opposite edge as Emily, allowing her to watch him discreetly while pretending to just be scanning the audience of officers.
Which meant she had a perfect view of every time he turned his head away, raising a hand to muffle the cough she could see rattling his chest. With each repetition, her worry grew, drowning out her ability to focus on the briefing.
Thankfully, the rest of the team had it under control, and soon enough the officers were shuffling off to their various posts.
Morgan had moved to stand by Reid, and as Emily approached she heard him say, “You just can't shake that cough, can you?” The words were said in a teasing manner, but Emily had known him – and been a profiler – long enough to hear the undercurrent of concern.
Which made sense. Morgan was the one with Reid when he'd been exposed. He'd stayed at the scene until Reid was being taken to the hospital. And as soon as the case had been wrapped up, Morgan had gone straight to the hospital, sitting in Reid's room for hours until he woke up.
Reid mumbled something Emily couldn't hear, but it was interrupted by a hacking cough that hurt her own lungs and throat just by listening to it.
When she maneuvered around Morgan and caught sight of Reid again, her worry only amplified tenfold. Drops of sweat dotted his forehead, and an unnatural flush coloured his cheeks. At some point, he'd produced a handkerchief, and he was holding it to his mouth as the fit dragged on.
He wobbled on the stool, and both Emily and Morgan reached out to steady him.
He finally pulled the handkerchief away, and Emily's eyes followed the movement. Automatically at first, but then her gaze locked on and she couldn't look away.
She couldn't look away from the white handkerchief stained with drops of red.
Her heart stopped.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, drowned out by an exclamation from Morgan she couldn't focus on, much less decipher.
Red stains. Red. On the handkerchief. Reid's handkerchief that he was coughing into.
Reid was coughing up blood.
Emily whirled, frantic eyes finding him hunched over on the stool, that horrible cough tearing out of him, bringing more flecks of red with it.
He made eye contact with her, honey brown eyes holding so much fear in them that Emily couldn't breathe for a moment. His eyes went completely white, rolling back in his head, and he slumped back. Morgan caught him before he could fall off the stool.
“Hotch!” he yelled, and Emily couldn't do anything but watch Reid's unconscious face, lips tinged with blood that dribbled down his chin.
Someone called for an ambulance, the precinct erupted in motion, but Emily was frozen, her mind whirling.
It didn't make sense. It was just a cold. He shouldn't be coughing up blood. Why was he coughing up blood?
Her brain ran in circles, asking questions she didn't have the answers to until she ended up at square one and started all over.
And then she remembered how Garcia had walked into the bullpen while the rest were tracking down Chad Brown and his strain. The devastated look on her face, the wobble in her voice as she'd relayed that Reid's condition had worsened on the way to the hospital. Hotch had gently shut her down to allow the team to focus, but Emily had gone to her later and asked what happened.
He'd lost the ability to communicate. And according to Dr. Kimura, that was one of the final symptoms before death.
He'd also been coughing blood.
Emily had the horrible feeling that the two instances were directly linked. There was no way Reid had somehow been re-infected with Anthrax. But maybe it had damaged his lungs, badly enough that the common cold could wreak havoc on his respiratory system, for more than what was normal.
The EMTs arrived, and Reid was on the floor being looked over. Then he was on a stretcher, being carried out of the precinct and into an ambulance. The team followed behind and left to wait for hours in the waiting room.
Eventually, the doctor came out to inform them of Reid's condition. That he would be alright, but his lungs had been previously damaged and hadn't fully recovered before being re-infected. That they would likely never recover completely, but would scar and damage easily. That he should take greater care around respiratory infections, otherwise he could end up in this position again.
Emily heard all of it, but it wasn't until she was in Reid's room, seated next to him and holding his hand, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest with the help of the respirator that the tension began to release from her body.
And it wasn't until Reid woke up and began to breathe on his own that Emily's own lungs finally began to work again.