CHAPTER TWO
IN MY HANDS .
❪ mexico : present day❫

LYDIA SHUDDERED IN A BREATH, GLANCING BETWEEN EMILY AND THE CELL SPENCER WAS HELD IN. She had been hoping for a miracle finding at the motel which would provide a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, but instead everything was a lot worse than previously thought. With Nadie's body already cold, they'd lost critical time in the way of gathering evidence. Whoever was responsible for the murder could have easily discarded any by now. They also could have easily planted more on Spencer.

"That motel room is covered in his stuff," Emily voice was grave, "His DNA will be all over the place."

She twisted the bracelet around her wrist subconsciously, "What about signs of an unsub? Anything?"

"Hard to tell," She sighed out, "But... it was brutal, Lydia. Whoever did this, they want him to go down for a long time."

"And they're going to every length to achieve it." She muttered, "Which means we'll have to go to every length to prove that he didn't do it."

Emily nodded towards the cell that was holding him, where Rossi and Luke were through something. "Are you okay with doing his cognitive interview?"

Lydia conducted most of the cognitive interviews on cases— her area of study had been heavily focused on it, and the team played to their strengths when possible. Granted, she'd never done one on Spencer or anyone else in the BAU for that matter. "Of course."

Emily shot her a grateful look, "I've asked Luke to take you over to the motel first. There's a possible witness on the front desk that would have been working around the time Reid arrived. She agreed to let you do a cognitive, too." She didn't look hopeful, "She might not have seen him at all, but it's worth a shot."

"No, yeah, of course," Lydia nodded, "How far is the motel?"

"Only twenty minutes," She glanced at Spencer, "Shouldn't take too long, but it'll give him a chance to sober up more before you do his."

Lydia followed her gaze, a frown falling on her features. She hated seeing him like this. Hated it. When she looked back to Emily, the woman was already watching her knowingly. "Are you sure you're okay doing his interview, I can—"

"I'll be fine, Emily." She assured, continuing when the women opened her mouth to object again, "Stop worrying, it'll give you greys."

She scoffed, "You kids already give me greys."

"I'll get you some box dye for your birthday." Lydia quipped, attention moving to the doorway where Luke was waving some car keys at her. "Call us if anything changes."

"Will do." Emily waved her off as she walked towards the man who was tapping his watch at her in jest. He led her out to a black SUV, rambling on about how Garcia had been giving him hell for accidentally pronouncing a word wrong in the hurry to get some information. Pen had tried to get her in on the whole "only refer to Luke as newbie" thing, but she was too fond of him for that.

"I don't know what to tell you," She laughed, "She's normally over her transition period of the new team member by now. You're a special case."

"Great, that makes me feel a lot better." He said dryly, looking down at her seat belt to make sure it was buckled before pulling out of the parking lot.

"I'll handle any Garcia calls we need to carry out in the next hour if that will make you feel better."

There was a quiet, fond, smile tugging at his lips as he said, "No, that's okay. I got it."

Lydia grinned knowingly. She occupied herself with looking out the window, taking in the landscaping— it wasn't often she travelled for anything other than work, so she liked to absorb the unfamiliar scenes when she could. The last vacation she'd taken was with JJ, Will and the kids to Disney about a year after Micheal was born. She'd rocked her godson to sleep in his stroller while Henry got to go on the rides with both his parents, and seeing the look on his face was golden.

After a while, Luke broke the comfortable silence, "Hey, can I ask you something?" He glanced at her briefly before he returned his eyes to the road. Lydia hummed her confirmation."What happened between you and Reid?"

Her eyes snapped to him in surprise. Part of her felt like she should feel annoyed at him for prying, but Luke wasn't the kind of person to seek out information for his own entertainment. His eyes were soft, and she understood that he just wanted to know his friends better. Luke was caring that way— he always had time to listen to people's stories, and he did so intently.

His fingers drummed against the wheel, "I've never really been able to figure you guys out. I mean, you've known each other for over a decade, but the way you interact... it's kind of, well, professional. Not like how he is with JJ and Penelope, or how you are with them. And sometimes there are these moments that make me think..." He shook his head, brows furrowed, "Like, when one of you goes out on the field. Of course everyone cares about both of your safety, but it seems like... it's the two of you that cares about the other the most. You just don't outwardly express it. Like you have to pretend not to."

He was a profiler, that was for sure. Or maybe she just wasn't as good at masking her feelings as she thought. He continued, "On the way to the motel, Emily was worried about how Spencer was holding up. Rossi told her that you were the best person to have there for him."

Lydia's teeth sunk into her lip for a moment, feeling oddly vulnerable. "We were friends— best friends, up until three years ago, but then there was this incident... I can't really say the details without giving away a story that isn't mine to tell. But something happened and he wasn't there for me when I needed him to be. He had his reasons, but..." She shook her head, brows furrowing, "They weren't good enough."

He sucked in a breath, "Three years is a long time for a rift to last, it must have been a pretty bad incident."

"It was."

"Do you ever...want to fix it?" He asked softly. Lydia was surprised at the way a lump instantly formed in her throat, getting an overwhelming sense that she was going to cry. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

"Sometimes," She admitted, "But I don't really know how. I don't think I can."

He sent her a look of sympathetic understanding, "Was it ever..." Luke hesitated, "More than friends?"

She looked down at her lap, "It's complicated."

He knew how to sense when someone was done with a subject, so he didn't question any further. They arrived at the motel shortly after, and Lydia conducted the cognitive interview on a women named Sara. It didn't produce much helpful information— all she managed to give was the sound of two car doors slamming at roughly the time Spencer was there, which she had said was strange because it had been quite other than that. She drew out a sigh when they arrived back at the precinct, rounding the SUV to join Luke. They walked back into the building, "Do you think Rossi got a hold of Gareth's team yet?"

He held the door open for her, "He said something about giving them another call before we left—"

Luke cut himself off as Spencer's cell came back into view, two figures standing there that hadn't been before. She smiled fondly at them, relief flooding through her like a tidal wave. "Matt, Clara, hey."

"Good to see you," Matt offered, returning her smile, "We've been waiting on you. Could really do with that cognitive now."

"Yeah, of course. As long as—" She hesitantly glanced at Spencer, who actually did seem to be significantly more present than he had been when they'd left, "— as long as you're ready."

"Yeah," He said softly, "I think I ... I want to give it a try."

She nodded, turning to Emily, "Alright, got a quiet place we can use?"

Emily hummed. She directed them through the building, opening a door that led into an almost empty room save for the table and chairs. Spencer situated himself on one side, Lydia directly opposite.

"I promised them that you'd record it for their records. It was the only way they'd let us do this." Emily informed them.

Lydia fished her phone out of her pocket, pulling up her voice memos app and placing it flat on the table. Once Emily made sure they were okay, she left to talk strategy with the rest of the team.

She pushed through the tension, giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. He gave her a small one in return. "Alright," She sighed, pressing record, "You said you landed in Houston, but that leaves a gap between getting across the border. Can you talk me through how that happened?"

His brows furrowed in concentration, eyes training on the ceiling as he muttered to himself before they closed fully, "Took a bus to Brownsville," He said finally, "Then I walked across..."

She gave him a moment to give any more answers, but he didn't seem to find anything noteworthy. So she continued, "How was the traffic, busy? quiet?"

He hummed, "... it was... busy. I was late for the meeting..." His eyes snapped open, "Rosa." He whispered quietly, more to himself at first before he repeated it firmly, "I met Rosa at the border the first time I crossed. Had to... had to call ahead to tell her I'd be late. She was understanding."

She waited, he continued, "But she said that next time... she couldn't afford to wait around by the border. It was too risky. So, we set up a meeting place. A motel."

"Is that where you met her the last time you crossed?"

Spencer nodded, "Yes. Yeah. She... she doesn't have an office here, that's why she picked the motel."

"It wasn't the first time you'd met, then. Why do you think you wrote her name on your arm?"

"I don't remember," He whispered, then repeated it like a mantra. She could tell he was losing focus, so she redirected him, "How did she act when you saw her? Did she seem... cautious?"

His brows furrowed as he thought, nodding slowly, "The curtains were closed," He said, "She ushered me in quickly."

"Then what happened?"

"She gave me the vials... the ones I'd been giving my mother... three drops a day... I thanked her. Gave her money..." His eyelids screwed tightly shut, and she noticed that his fists began to clench. She knew he was getting a breakthrough, so she let him work through it without interruption.

"There was a noise, car tyres... she... she looked panicked. We're by the window, it— the door. It opened abruptly, we didn't see them approach it."

Lydia's brows raised, but she attempted to hide the shift in her demeanour, not wanting to break his focus. If Spencer could recall a third party, it would help towards proving that some else was present to have committed the murderer. "Who opened it?"

"I didn't see..." he murmured, "They must have knocked me out... I'm on the floor... Rosa is on the floor too..." He muttered to himself for a moment, "Someone else is definitely there... there's a knife. A lot of blood."

"Where is the knife?"

"My hand..." He was struggling, shaking his head, and Lydia could see crimson began to stain the bandages, "I-I'm trying to stop them. It's in my hand."

"Trying to stop who?"

"They're stabbing her... I'm trying to... it's in my hand."

"They're stabbing Rosa?"

"Yes." He said, "I'm trying to stop them. It's in my hand."

His breathing picked up, hands shaking like a power drill. The blood seeped faster. It almost looked like he was drowning.

"Spencer," She said, but he didn't seem to hear her, so she reached out and took his hand to stop him from hurting himself, "Spencer."

He blinked, chest rising and falling heavily. It took him a moment to re-associate himself with his surroundings, but when he did it was her his gaze remained focused on.

"We'll take a break," She said, nodding to the blood that had seeped through the bandages, "Someone needs to take a look at your hand again."

Lydia gave him a look of reassurance before she slipped out into the hall, instructing the guard in Spanish that he'd need medical attention. Emily, Rossi and Luke stood waiting.

"Spencer just remembered that there was another person there—" She cut herself off, features falling at their expressions. "What? What happened?"

"They just charged Reid with the murder of Nadie Ramos." Luke said grimly.

She blinked at them. Her hope for a way out of this was already merely a pile of embers, but it felt like his words had doused them in water and put them out for good. "Jesus," She murmured, pinching the space between her brows before she looked back up to them with a questioning expression, "Where the hell do we go from here?"

Rossi sighed, attempting to morph his hardened expression into a more optimistic one, "You said Reid spoke about a third person?"

Lydia nodded, but then as she thought over the interview more and more with the hindsight of the murder charge, it began to feel incriminating rather than exonerating. "He did, but... he also kept saying that he had a hold of the murder weapon," Lydia skipped ahead in the voice memo to a point where Spencer was repeating it's in my hand,  "This...this makes him look guilty. Even with the context, they can just take what they need and ignore the part where he claims there's another person."

They all exchanged looks of agreement, and she pocketed her phone again. "We should go talk to Matt and Clara, see what they've come up with."

After Spencer's hand had been seen to, he'd been escorted back to the cell where everyone was waiting.

"Lab reports on the vials came back," Clara said, "But there aren't any illegal substances— some things that haven't been approved by the FDA, but nothing that can incriminate you."

"It's great news." Emily smiled at Spencer, and through his slightly lingering disorientation he looked relieved.

Clara watched him contemplatively for a moment before she asked, "Is there anything else you can remember about being here?"

"I remember my mom threw out the vials," He answered, "I must have been here to get more."

Matt nodded, "Well you're off the hook for that, there's no contraband."

"Yeah but... we're still looking at the planted drugs and murder charges that could keep you here for a long time."

Emily sighed, "So what can we do to delay the transfer?"

A calculating expression overtook Clara's features, "You said you met Nadie, who call herself Rosa, in Houston. Why didn't she just give you the vials there?"

"I don't know... but she helped us, and I trusted her. I know I was right to do that." Spencer said softly.

Matt's brows furrowed, "But she convinced you to cross the border multiple times, had you risk your life."

Clara brows shot upwards, "Because she must have had something to lose too."

"You said in your cognitive that Rosa set up the meetings at the motel instead of the border because she was scared of the risks," Lydia nodded her agreement, "We just need to figure out what those risks were."

Spencer nodded to himself thoughtfully, "What was in the vials?"

Matt looked at the crumpled paper in his hands,"There were some nootropic compounds like Ampalex, but also some more natural stuff like Coral Calcium, Jimson Weed, coconut oil, a variety of vitamins... B12, D3."

Spencer blinked, "Where are we right now?"

"Matamoros, Northern Mexico."

His expression shifted, like puzzle pieces were finally falling into place, "Jimson Weed, also known as the Devil's Snare, originated in Mexico but it's natural growing region is further north or south of the border."

Lydia felt her lips push up at the corners as Emily said, "Now that sounds more like you."

"So it isn't from here? Then where'd she get it?"

Emily pulled out her phone, the receiver picking up instantly, "Garcia, we've got some questions."

Matt spoke, "Hey, Penelope."

"Oh, my god. It's the dulcet tones of Matt Simmons. Are you here to save the day?"

His lips quipped upwards, "I'm trying. Clara's here too."

"Knowing we have you guys as backup is providing me with some much needed hope and I work better that way." The sound of her fingers against the keyboard accompanied her words.

Clara spoke, "Hey, lady. We're trying to catch up on a few things. Where is Nadie Ramos from?"

Only a few seconds passed before there was an answer, "She lives with her family just north of Matamoros."

"That must be where she got the jimson weed."

Penny continued, "What's weird is she crosses the border, like, a lot."

Emily brows pulled downwards, "Why?"

"Well, she works at a clinic in Houston and also helps at a low income healthcare centre. I can't find a visa on her, which is double weird. And finishing the weird trifecta there is a social security number on her W-2 form..."

"She has dual citizenship?" Lydia eyes widened, feeling those embers that had been doused earlier begin to catch light again.

"Yeah, she was born in Houston but her family had to move back to Mexico and she lives with them but works in the U.S."

"That changes everything, if she's an American citizen we can get jurisdiction." Lydia said quickly. She glanced at Spencer, who met her eyes with a mix of relief and trepidation.

Emily nodded, "We need to talk to the consulate—"

They were interrupted by the presence of someone. "It's time for his transfer." The guards started towards Spencer, and he looked at them in helpless panic. Her stomach churched at the fear in his eyes, and Emily hastily pulled out her phone.

"We've had a break in the case, the victim was also American and that calls for extradition."

He shrugged, "I've got orders. Sorry."

Lydia could only watch, blood roaring in her ears as Emily exchanged words with the person on the other end of the phone,"With the victim having dual citizenship we now have concurrent jurisdiction. It was my understanding the official order to extradite SSA Spencer Reid would be evaluated." She heard Emily say, watching them lead Spencer. There was a paused before Emily spoke again,  "I understand, thank you." She hung up, "They're taking it into the brass, go get him."

Luke wasted no time retrieving Spencer, and Lydia could still feel the beat of her heart in her throat. She let out a breath, willing her anxiety to calm down. This was good. It wasn't solved, by any means, but it was a step towards it and away from disaster.

Emily put a hand on her shoulder, and she could see that the older woman was going through similar emotions, "You want to go gather the bags from the lockers?"

Lydia could tell she was trying to provide her with a task to occupy herself with instead of dwelling on any negatives that attempted to creep into her mind, and she was grateful for it. By the time she'd collected all their go-bags, the extradition had been approved and they made their way to the tarmac.

She hadn't realised how exhausted she was until she stepped foot onto the familiar Jet— her body felt like concrete, as if her limbs had been filled and were too heavy to move. "Thanks for the ride home." Matt spoke, Clara nodding along in agreement with an appreciative smile.

"Thank you for your help." Emily returned, and Lydia could see her exhaustion mirrored in the older women.

"Of course, we were glad to." Clara said.

Lydia flopped into the window seat, allowing her head to loll onto the back of it. She wasn't too sure why her next thought occurred to her, "My ice cream will be spoiled."

She was vaguely aware of the three of them turning their questioning gazes towards her, "When Emily phoned me, I didn't have time to put away my grocery's." She muttered tiredly, and if there was a response, sleep had taken her too quickly to hear it.

Still, they chuckled just as Luke and Spencer boarded the Jet. Once the latter had thanked them for helping, Emily had explained that he'd need his handcuffs on for any other eyes but theirs, and considering no one else would be setting sights on him for afew hours the cuffs could be taken off.

They all settled into their seats for takeoff, and as Luke watched Spencer, he thought about the conversation he'd had with Lydia in the car earlier. Reid's gaze was on her, and the look in it spoke of a million untold histories that bound them together. He wondered if there would ever be a time when he'd get to see them as they used to be, before the incident Lydia had been talking about.

It looked like Spencer was wondering that too.

HEY! As always, thank you so much for reading. Next chapter is most likely going to be a flashback, so a little pause from the present to see how Spencer & Lydia's relationship began to from. I'm super excited, and I hope you are too <3

Also, my gifs currently aren't working for some reason so apologises for the lack of them until I can get them sorted!

Please, feel free to let me know what you think!
— mads x.                              ( edited: 21.10.24 )