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As soon as Brown is in custody, Derek races to the hospital. To hell with the paperwork; he can complete it tomorrow.
Reid is more important.
Derek barely manages to drive the speed limit.
He parks hastily and rushes to the floor he knows is housing the Anthrax victims.
Doctor Kimura recognizes him when he bursts in. “Agent Morgan,” she calls, and he hurries over.
She's already leading him to a small, open room. “We've given him the cure, and from what we've been able to tell, it's helped. He hasn't woken yet, but that's to be expected with something as severe as this. You're welcome to stay with him until visiting hours are over.”
He thanks her absently, and she leaves to see other patients. He sinks into a chair and stares at his friend.
Reid is pale. It's the first thing Derek notices. The thin, paper-like quality to his skin, combined with the light colours of the sheets and hospital gown, makes him look completely washed out. His dark circles are even more prominent.
Doctor Kimura mentioned the cure, but Derek can't help but think he looks dead. Only the beeping of the heart monitor and the slow rise and fall of his chest convince him otherwise.
Dimly, he registers the rapid clicking of heels on the tile floor. A brief pause, and then it picks up again, coming closer.
“Derek?” someone asks.
It's Garcia, hovering outside the room. She quickly finds the other chair in the room. “How is he?” she whispers, making her own perusal of Reid.
“Kimura said he's improving. That's all I really know.”
“Oh thank God,” she breathes, and he can hear the wetness of tears in it.
Derek doesn't respond. Reid saved himself, again, and Derek doesn't believe God had anything to do with it.
Still, he is grateful he didn't leave his friend to die alone when he joined Hotch to apprehend Brown.
“You said he got sicker on the way here,” he finds himself saying. “What did they tell you?”
“Nothing, really. Just that he'd gotten much worse.”
They lapse into silence for a long time.
Eventually, Reid shifts. Both Derek and Garica straighten up, watching him to see if he'll wake.
He does, his eyes opening and blinking rapidly. He focuses on the two of them and mumbles something that sounds like a question.
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” Derek says, more relieved than he can say that Reid's awake. He hasn't slipped into a coma and died. The Anthrax hasn't killed him.
Reid says something, fast and slurred and way too muddled for Derek to understand a word of it.
“Woah, slow your roll there, kid,” he says, opting for a light, teasing voice. “You're not making any sense. Take a breath and try again, slowly.”
Reid nods, a sheepish smile forming on his face. And then he starts again.
But the words still don't make sense, and Derek realizes that, no, they aren't words at all. It's a jumble of sounds and syllables, but it's gibberish.
Brows furrowing, he glances at Garcia to see the same, worried look on her face.
Reid notices. Of course he does; he's a genius and a profiler. He asks another unintelligible question. “Hang in there, Reid,” Morgan says and leaves the room.
Doctor Kimura is still there, thankfully. She's talking with a woman with blonde hair, and he can hear as he approaches that they're discussing Abby, one of the other victims.
Distantly, he wonders if she's still alive, or if she passed before they could find the cure.
The blonde woman he assumes is her mother nods, and heads off towards another room with another bed.
“Doctor Kimura,” Derek says, and she turns.
She must see the look on his face because she immediately asks, “What's wrong?”
“He's awake,” he responds, the two of them already moving back to Reid's room, “but he's having difficulty speaking.”
She nods. “Several of the victims experienced aphasia in the last few hours.”
They arrive at the room and find Reid sitting up, saying something frantically to Garcia, who doesn't know how to respond.
“Doctor Reid,” Doctor Kimura says, and he turns to her. “It's good to see you awake. I'm just going to check up on some things, alright?”
He nods. Derek and Garcia sit in the chairs, staying out of the way as she moves around the room, checking monitors and examining him.
Reid is visibly tiring by the time she finishes, and she smiles at him. She assures him that he can rest, and his eyes slip closed.
She nods at them, before stepping out.
They follow.
“This strain affected the parietal lobe of the brain, the part that handles communication. Luckily, it doesn't seem like his understanding of others is impaired, only his speech. We were able to administer the cure not long after he began having difficulty speaking. I'm hopeful that the aphasia is only temporary, and that as he rests and heals, it'll clear up. Unfortunately, it'll take some time before we can know for sure.”
“But he'll be okay, right?” Garcia asks.
“He's making great improvements,” Doctor Kimura says with a smile. “It'll take some time before his lungs heal, and he'll need to take it easy for a while and avoid anything that will reinfect him, but he'll be fine.”
A sigh of relief gusts out of her, and Derek feels one of his own follow, subdued, but there.
They file back into the room and settle in the chairs once more. Reid's asleep again, but his skin has more colour.
They don't speak, but the silence is more comfortable than tense this time.
Her hand finds his, and she squeezes. He squeezes her back. “He's gonna be okay,” she repeats with a whisper.
“Yeah. He will. He's a stubborn thing, and way stronger than we give him credit for sometimes.”
A stray tears leaks down her cheek. Derek wipes it away. “Hey, hey, what's with the tears?”
“I was so scared,” she says, voice shaking. “I couldn't stop thinking about how quickly people were dying, and how he was still in that house breathing it in and killing himself quicker, and I couldn't do anything to help him.”
“But you did help, sweetheart. You tracked down Brown, and we got him before he could hurt anyone else.”
She falls quiet, except for a small sniff. Her hand flies up to her face to wipe away some more tears.
Derek pulls her into a hug. The arms of the chairs dig into his side, and the hug is at an awkward angle, but she doesn't pull away, and neither does he. “He's gonna be okay, Penelope.”
She sniffs again, hugging him back. “I know.”
The next morning, the two of them are walking into the hospital as soon as visiting hours open back up. The rest of the team have promised to visit sometime today.
They settle back into the same chairs as yesterday after a quick conversation with Doctor Kimura.
Apparently, Reid had slept through the night and is expected to wake up any moment now.
The room is peaceful as he sleeps, and Derek begins flipping through a magazine, eating a cup of jello Garcia brought him from the cafeteria before heading to the bathroom.
In a moment of quiet, after putting a bite of the dessert in his mouth and flipping another page, Derek hears something beautiful.
“Is that jello?”