Dark Academia- Spencer Reid

Chapter 26

A.N- Hello my beauties. I'm trying my hardest to update, but life has been getting in the way haha! Remember to be kind to one another, you don't know what goes on behind another's eyes.

Trigger Warning - Drug use.

The case was a lot more work than the team had ever anticipated. Missing children's cases are absolutely grueling both physically and mentally. To think that the life of a child is practically in the palm of your hand is terrifying.

"Alright Pretty Boy, spill. What is on your mind?"

Spencer looked over to the driver's side of the SUV, where Morgan was effortlessly in control of the vehicle. "I don't know what you're talking about... no one is on my mind," he responded annoyed.

"You know what is funny? That's what you said to me the first time you met Barbarage. What happened man? What are you hiding?"

Spencer looked down at his feet ashamed. "Zena found the dilaudid," he whispered.

"Reid, are you using again man? I thought things were going well," Morgan replied, raising his voice.

"For fucks sake, no. I am not using. Even if I was, it is no ones business but my own. So how about we drop the subject."

Morgan felt rage boil deep inside of him. "As far as I'm concerned it is just as much Zena's business as it is yours. That woman loves you with every fiber in her body. You are not going to get upset with her because she's livid and caught you with the drug you've had addiction problems with since before you met her." He stopped to take a breath, but Spencer had cut him off.

"She wasn't mad. That's the issue. I'm a borderline schizophrenic drug addict with the most supportive wife in the goddamn world. My job interferes with our wedding, she shoos me off with a smile and a kiss. I practically force her to join the team and she gets shot on her first case, but she comes back happier and more eager. I potentially relapse on drugs, she makes me smash them and tells me how proud of me she is. Who am I to deserve this? What the fuck does she want with me?" Spencer hadn't realized the tears streaming down his face, or the heaving that he was doing from screaming at the top of his lungs.

Morgan pulled into the driveway of the victim's family's home. "If any two people in this world deserves unconditional love it is you and Zena. I had Garcia open up her file, I know how horrible her life was. That girl only knows trauma and pain. No matter how difficult her version of the world was, she only put good into it. She fucking dedicates her life to saving the planet, teaching asshole college students to save the planet, and finding serial killers to bring families the justice they deserve. What she gives to you and the rest of this horrible world is genuine and pure. She loves you so much and if you screw this up because you're angry at yourself everyone on this team will never forgive you; yourself included."

Spencer stared at him with wide eyes and his mouth open. The man with the photographic memory couldn't recall a time where Derek had put him in his place like that. Rather than fighting back, he nodded solemnly and got out of the SUV.

After a major breakthrough in the case, the team was back on the jet to Quantico. Spencer still hadn't gotten the chance to talk with Zena since she found out he had the viles, and he needed to come clean to her. He went to sit next to her, a cup of coffee as an offering, when he found her sound asleep, her head up against the window. He smiled lightly to himself giving her a kiss on her dark hair. "I love you, more than anything," he whispered.

Back home Zena was acting as if everything was normal and Spencer couldn't figure out why. He once again approached her with a cup of coffee as a peace offering. "Can we talk," he said timidly. He watched her head snap up from the book she was reading on the couch, glasses falling off in the process.

"Are you breaking up with me," she said jokingly in a valley girl accent, reaching her hands out to accept the mug from Spencer's left hand. Moving her lounging legs over, she patted the spot next to hers on the couch.

Chuckling, Spencer patted her thigh. "We need to talk about what happened Friday morning. I don't want this to trickle on," he started with a wavering voice.

"As you know, I had a dilaudid problem, well I guess I technically still do. And if we are being honest with one another, I had relapsed the week before I met you. My mother was so sick and I just couldn't handle the stress. So two years of sobriety down the drain in seconds, I was becoming miserable to be around. I think the entire team knew I started using again, but everyone was too scared to say anything because they didn't want it to be true."

Spencer stopped to collect himself before he got emotional, and Zena grabbed his free hand and squeezed it supportively.

"So just like Friday morning, I bump into this woman in the natural science building at Hopkins, and her papers fly everywhere. And I'm beginning to withdraw again, so I'm just absolutely pissed at her and myself that she's wasting my time and I'm just inconveniencing everyone. And I look up into these emerald eyes and everything changes. I'm suddenly not thinking about shooting up, I'm having a conversation with the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Spencer is now holding back tears while Zena is full on silently sobbing. However, he continues because he believes she deserves to know.

"And I thought to myself, 'you know, if she comes to the lecture, it's a sign to stop using again'. Which is very out of character for me, but low and behold you show up to my lecture and you look absolutely fascinated by what we are talking about. And I didn't know how things would end between us, but I knew in that moment that you were going to change my life for the better," he explained with the tears streaming rapidly down his face.

"Delilah saved your life," Zena whispered to him.

"What?"

"I wasn't going to go; I was nervous and didn't want to come off as a creep to an FBI agent. She told me to stop being a baby and go. I didn't save your life, Delilah did," she said.

"I owe both of you my life to be honest. But all you have been since the moment we met was supportive. Every work call, every case, every family issue; you only loved me more. Even when I lashed out on you about Emily, I just can't imagine how you are so gorgeous inside and out."

"This isn't about me though; don't you realize that? You made these choices, with circumstance and pure luck But none the less, you did this by yourself. And for that, I'm more proud of you than you know. I'm not going to stop loving you because of your past, or because you're going through a hard time. We will get through this together. If you relapse again, we will get you the help you need, no questions asked. But for now, please go to as many meetings as possible, for yourself. You owe yourself your life."

"I love you so much, Zena."

"I love you too."