Author’s Note: Sorry it’s been a little while. There’s really no excuse-I’ve just been lazy:P Read & Review please! Ps. Thanks for all the previous reviews!

POV switches.

Unprofessional

This couldn’t be happening. He could not be asking her to do this.

Reid sat against the bed knees to his chest staring at the dirty laundry. The room was deathly quiet and no one dare speak. JJ had gotten him to sit up. At least that was an improvement. She had not idea what to do with someone who was high on heroine, or whatever it was he took.

Comfort him until he sobered up was all she could do.

She kept his head on her lap until he opened his eyes and she could tell it was Reid again. AS he was still off in his dreams she studied him. To her he had always been the harmless nerdy friend who she could go for any piece of information she needed. Never this sort of person, but this made him seem more human to her. He always seemed like a character from a movie that you thought was so ridiculously intelligent and dorky that he couldn’t possibly be real.

Now it was different. She saw him in a whole new light.

His hair was longer than when she first met him. It was tousled and drenched with sweat as it fell across his face. She instinctively pushed it away and tucked it behind his ear. Realizing what she was doing her hand recoiled like it had touched hot water.

That was unprofessional. She shouldn’t be touching him like that.

As she thought on it longer she grasped that the whole situation was unprofessional. Reid shouldn’t have been lying on the floor high and she shouldn’t be letting him rest in her lap.

But she decided that she had to throw the work issue out the window. This wasn’t a work situation and at this moment he wasn’t a co-worker, but a friend. Someone he cared for.

Reid made an incoherent noise, his face twitched like a fly crawled across his cheek and he scratched at it. His eyes fluttered open, the sun dancing off his light eyelashes. His hazel eyes were more green than brown today.

He was a mess and his skin suddenly became cool and clammy. His eyes turned from confused to frantic.

“I’m gonna throw up.” He whispered. His eyes darted around him searching for anywhere but here to go. He tried to get up but failed and collapsed back down to the floor.

JJ searched around the room until here eyes focused on the trash can near the bedside table. She reached for it and had to stretch as far as her body would allow her as Reid pinned her to the floor.

Finally taking hold of it she swung it around almost hitting him in the face. He hurriedly forced himself to sit up and she gripped his shoulder firmly trying to support his weight as best she could.

The look of sickness took over his whole face now and she turned her head and grimaced as he wretched into the trash can. The fact that he hadn’t eaten anything in days so it was nothing but water. And his stomach was not satisfied. It tried and tried to cough up anything it could.

He went on like this for the longest five minutes of JJ’s life. Afterwards, his muscles and body exhausted, he lay back against the bed sniffing and trying to clear his throat.

“JJ?” his voice asked wavering. “I thought you were my mother.” The statement confused her at first but then she realized what he was talking about.

“No….I knocked but no one…” he voice faded.

She was sure he got the point. No need to explain anything else. JJ suddenly felt hurt by what he said. She was the one that found him and he thought it was his mother. She was in a mental institution. She was the one there comforting him; not her.

“I don’t know if I can deal with this Spencer.” She told him. But Reid didn’t say anything more.

It was two hours later and Reid sat in the same state.

Knees tucked up to his chest. His body gently rocking, his eyes lost in thought.

JJ had moved to the chair in the corner. She didn’t know what she should do. He had asked her not to tell anyone, but he thought he was talking to his mother. Everyone always knows that their mothers would do anything for their children, but JJ was his co-worker.

Her thoughts started to drift and her eyes lightly closed. She was half asleep until Reid unmistakably repeated himself.

“Please, don’t tell anyone.”

His eyes were pleading now. His mouth slightly opened, but his lip started to quiver and he bit it. She looked back at his eyes. They started away, but she could see them well up. He quickly wiped his palm across the side of his face to hide it.

But she saw.

And it broke hear heart.

She’d seen Reid cry twice. There was a glimmer of it that night with Tobias, but what she really saw him shut down. She remembered looking at the screen and he was staring back, but there was nothing there. Like he knew he was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do; like he had given up.

But never true crying.

JJ couldn’t think of how to respond.

“What am I supposed to say?” she whispered. She could hear her voice crack. She couldn’t do this. She could go out in front of fifty reporters, flashes, and cameras and be perfectly calm, but she couldn’t handle being this close to a man in this situation. She couldn’t handle seeing someone she was close to suffer, but what he was asking…

“Just say you won’t. Just this once. I don’t want the team knowing. I can’t...” his voice faltered. He got hold of himself and continued, “I can’t lose my job, JJ. It just can’t happen. What would I do if I lost my job?”

There was silence. She knew she was taking a big risk. What about her? Doesn’t he know how hard it would be to keep a secret like that? And if the team did find out? What about her job?

But Reid needed her and she had walked into this herself.

“Okay.” She finally replied. “I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Thank-you, JJ.” He said in all seriousness.

He leaned over and reached his hand over to her arm to give her a thanking caress, but her arm recoiled away before he could.

She stared at him as if he had no right even thinking he could touch her. Maybe that was the price he had to pay for her to keep his secret or maybe it was those dogs.

She had mentioned it to Prentiss a few times how they still haunted her dreams even weeks after that night. Prentiss of course had mentioned it to Morgan who mentioned it to him.

He tried to ask her about it before, but she always shrugged it off like she didn’t even remember them. He remembered everything like it just happened last night. She must’ve been lying.

Or maybe it was just what he first thought.

“Do you still see them at night?”

She fell out of her trance and stared at him

“Excuse me?” she asked, but Reid knew she knew what he was talking about.

“Do you still see them?” he repeated with more determination.

“Look Reid, I don’t know what you’re talking about—“

“Never mind.” He interrupted her now regretting his question. She would never open up to him.

“Yes.” She quickly changed her answer. His eyes met hers. He suddenly could feel how naked he was and wished he slept in something more than his boxers.

“Do you still see him?” she asked in return.

“Every time I shut my eyes.” He replied.

Reid was suddenly glad it was JJ who had found him. He knew someone would catch him eventually. It was only a matter of time, but he always imagined Gideon or Morgan, but JJ rarely made house visits to anyone on the team. She really didn’t socialize with anyone of them outside of work.

“Uhm,” JJ interrupted his thoughts, “I think I better go. I’ll tell them you’re throwing up or something.”

“Okay.” He said and then looked back to the floor.

JJ looked at him one last time and was glad he didn’t move his gaze because then she wouldn’t be able to leave. She couldn’t look in people’s eyes; she always ended up turning around and staying with them.

But today she couldn’t She hadn’t even figured her own shit out yet. How was she supposed to deal with Reid’s too?

“Try and get yourself enough together to be able to answer some phone calls though. The team might need your input on some things. Plus, it might make my story sound a tad more believable.”

He gave her a nod and she took it as a yes and get the hell out of there. She just couldn’t take any more of Reid. It just brought back bad memories. She’d been there for two hours.

What was she supposed to tell them? I held his hair back while he puked up the nonexistent food in his fridge?

Or that I brushed the hair back from his face after he was coming off a high from heroin.

Neither sounded like a good choice. Brushed his hair back. Why had she done that? What if he felt that? That was completely inappropriate. He was her colleague and friend. Not even a really close friend.

They went to that game together and barely had two sentences to say to each other. He spent the entire time taking great interest in his shoes and she bit her lip looking at the game and then back at him not knowing what to say. What do you say to a twenty-four year old with the mind capacity of two humans? How do you tell a genius he needs help?

AN: personally I think this chapter is kind of crap, but I needed to get the story started and show JJ’s distress along with Reid’s. Tell me what you think. Thanks!