Food and Drug Chapter 1
"Knock, knock," Reid broke the comfortable silence in the BAU bullpen.
"Whooooooo's there?" Morgan asked wearily from a pile of paperwork on his desk.
"Schroedinger's Cat," Reid replied, barely able to contain his mirth in the face of the upcoming punchline.
"Schroedinger's Cat who?" Emily asked brightly as she swiveled around in her chair.
"Schroedinger's Cat...Wanted...Dead AND Alive!" Reid cracked up, bending his head over his knees in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
Emily paused for a second, thought back to a physics course that she had accidentally signed up for in college, retrieved the only physics concept that she had stored in long-term memory, and burst out laughing as well. She laughed so hard that she lost control of her epiglottis, the flap of tissue at the back of the throat that directed food and drink into the stomach rather than the lungs whenever the glutton swallowed. A mouthful of delicious black coffee wormed its dendritic streams into Emily's trachea, bronchi, and alveoli. Emily doubled over, cringing and coughing, part of her mind still delighting in Reid's hilarious quantum physics knock-knock joke, another part of her mind already cursing at Reid for instigating her choking fit.
Morgan pushed his chair away from his desk, stood up, gathered up his paperwork, and snuck away in silent resignation. The two insufferable dorks tried to get a hold of themselves.
"God, Reid," Emily huffed and puffed a lingering thimbleful of coffee from her nostrils. "Why do you have to tell your science jokes when I'm eating and drinking?"
"Because I know that you find them funny, and I enjoy watching you choke on your food and drink when you laugh at them?" Reid grinned evilly.
"That's not nice," Emily narrowed her eyes. "That's really mean," she pouted as she stood up to put on her jacket.
"Hey Emily, I'm sorry..." Reid stood up anxiously, misinterpreting Emily's mock anger as true anger. "Emily, where are you going?"
"I'm kidding, Reid," Emily grabbed her purse and car keys. "I'm heading out early today. I'm taking the afternoon off to attend a fundraiser for my mother's new job."
"Oh good, for a second there, I thought that you were really mad at me," Reid sighed in relief. "I'll continue to follow my established protocol for making you choke on your food, drink, and own saliva then. Hey, I didn't know that your mother had a new job. Did she quit her position at the State Department?"
"Yeah, she did," Emily replied. "After that Russian mob case, she changed her mind about pursuing another diplomatic appointment. She started working with non-governmental aid organizations, providing educational opportunities for young women in developing countries. She was telling me that the education of young women was the key to pulling entire populations out of poverty. She just turned 65 last week. I think this is a great semi-retirement for her. She can take it a bit slower, enjoy her charitable work, know that she's still able to contribute from her position, socialize with like-minded people...It's a win-win situation."
"Oh great," Reid approved. "It's a far cry from staring at eviscerated bodies and brains in jars all day, isn't it?"
"No kidding," Emily said, "Maybe I should reconsider my own career path."
"No, Emily, I think you..." Reid stopped at a teasing smirk from Emily, realizing that he had misinterpreted her statement, relieved that Emily had no intention of leaving the BAU. "Well, have a good weekend, Emily. See you on Monday."
"Alrighty then, see you on Monday," Emily headed towards the elevator. "If Morgan asks, tell him that I've gone to the dentist. Otherwise, he'll want his own time off to cuddle up with his Halloween Honey or whatever," she shuddered in true disgust. "Oh, and Reid?" she pressed the "Down" button and turned back towards the bullpen.
"Yeah, Emily?"
"I'll keep an eye out for Schroedinger's Cat...Wanted...Dead AND Alive!" Emily snorted her way into the elevator.
Reid snorted on his own in the bullpen, until Rossi noticed and stepped out of his office to demand an explanation. Reid told his quantum physics knock-knock joke. Rossi buried his face in his hands and stomped back into his office. There, he closed the door and pulled down the blinds, the better to block out the infectious dork waves emanating from the now deserted bullpen.
"Mom! Mom! Be careful!" Emily rushed over to catch her mother before Elizabeth could fall to the hardwood floor.
"Mom, what's wrong?" Emily asked anxiously.
"I...I don't know," Elizabeth replied, rubbing at her eyes with one hand while steadying herself with the other. "I guess I blacked out for a second? It wasn't exactly a blackout. It was more like everything going gray, then white, and I was falling, then you caught me..."
"How do you feel now?" Emily examined her mother's eyes. "Maybe we should go to the emergency room."
"My head...It hurts a lot...Stabbing, shooting pains in my forehead...Not like any migraine I've ever had...No pounding though...And I'm dizzy, even when I'm not moving..."
"That's it," Emily decided, "We've got to go to the hospital. I'm not taking no for an answer," she answered a resisting look from her mother. "Here...Slowly...Try to stand up...Put your weight on my arms," she helped her mother to a standing position.
"Do you think you can make it downstairs?" Emily asked, glancing down the upstairs hallway of Elizabeth's townhouse.
"What stairs? What's going on? Where am I?" Elizabeth gazed at her daughter in confusion.
"Mom, we're at home," Emily smoothed her mother's hair away from her face. "Here...I've changed my mind...Let's sit you down," she lowered her mother gently into a leather armchair in the master bedroom. "Let's not take any risks. I'm going to call the paramedics," she dialed 911.
Much to Emily's relief, it took only two minutes for her to explain the situation to the 911 operator. Elizabeth sat quietly, staring intently across the room. Emily followed her gaze to a dark mahogany dresser, seeing nothing on it, above it, or near it that would command her mother's undivided attention. From her own maternal instincts, she draped an afghan, one that she had crocheted herself, across her mother's shoulders. Emily didn't know how the afghan was supposed to help, but the soft comforting gesture gave her a measure of strength. She patted her mother on the knees and dashed down the stairs to welcome the paramedics.
In the ambulance, on the way to Streyer University Medical Center, Elizabeth Prentiss began seizing. She fell backwards against the gurney, her head hitting its padded surface as her body rocked violently in unpredictable heaves and twitches that did not match the pattern of any recognizable class of seizures. The paramedics backed away, one of them slipping a small pillow under her head as her body flailed upwards for a second. Emily strained towards the gurney, but felt herself wrenched backwards by a pair of strong hairy arms.
"No, ma'am, no!" the paramedic yelled. "We have to let it run its course! She'll hurt herself if we try to restrain her!"
"What if she swallows her tongue? What if she chokes to death?" Emily screamed, realizing that this was not the first time that she had witnessed such a scene.
The scene felt much more real in person than through a webcam. In person, Emily could see the spittle sliding down the side of her mother's face as the paramedic guided her head to one side. She could hear the banging of her mother's heels against the edge of the gurney as the paramedic slid a blanket under her feet to soften the impact. Most of all, in person, Emily could see that the person seizing, choking, and dying in front of her was her own mother, and there was nothing that Emily think of to save her mother, not even if she carved up her brain into tiny little compartments that never communicated with each other.
At the hospital, a team of medical personnel in multi-colored scrubs rushed the ambulance. They surrounded the gurney as they wheeled Elizabeth into the emergency room. A nurse offered Emily an arm to lean on as she passed through the automatic doors. Emily felt a tear roll down her cheeks, then another and another and another. She repressed the involuntary response, but not in time to hide her distress from the strangers in the waiting room. They stared at her, some in sympathy, others in curiosity, depending on the extent of their own medical issues. She sank into a chair behind a fake green plant and dug her cell phone out of her pocket. Through the fog of fear and panic and pain that enveloped her, Emily speed-dialed the first number within her shaky fingers' grasp. The phone rang and rang and rang, and Emily was just about to hang up before a sleepy voice answered.
"Knock, knock," said Thumper, thumping his animated paw pads against the forest floor.
"Who's there?" asked Bambi, wobbling on his skinny unsteady legs.
"Schroedinger's Cat," said Flower, rolling his large round eyes and sticking out his striped tail in exasperated warning.
"Schroedinger's Cat who?" asked Bambi, twitching his tiny white tail in time with his swaying legs.
"Schroedinger's Cat...Wanted...Dead AND Alive!" laughed Thumper, clapping his front paws together in a fluffy dance of mirth.
"Pooooooof!" Flower released a spray of foul-smelling skunkish musk.
"Ewwwwwww!" Thumper bounced away in disgust, trying to wrap his bunny ears far enough across his face to block off his pink nose.
"Flower!" Bambi admonished the gloating skunk. "I thought you promised that..."
Reid never heard what Flower had promised to do before his cell phone jolted him out of his dream.
"Hhhhhhhlllllllo?" he answered drowsily.
"Hello? Who is this?" a voice asked through loud sniffling noises.
"Uh...This is Dr. Spencer Reid...Who is this?" Reid asked, sitting up from his couch where he had fallen asleep while watching classic Disney movies.
"Emily," the voice replied. "It's Emily...It's my mom, Reid...She's sick...With a headache and seizures, and they wheeled her in, and the nurses won't let me get near her...I don't know what to do...Can you come...I'm sorry to bother you...Can you come over tonight?"
"It's OK, Emily," Reid said. "I'll be over as fast as I can. Now, tell me where you are...Which hospital, which emergency room?"
"Streyer," Emily replied, "The Trauma Center. Sorry, Reid, I don't mean to bug you during the weekend. I'm just...I don't even know..."
"You did the right thing, Emily," Reid comforted his friend, "The exact right thing, in every single way. Your mom got sick, you took her to the ER, you called me...I'm leaving my apartment right now," he grabbed his wallet and keys on his way out the door. "I'll be there in twenty minutes or less. I'll be there in no time. You wait for the doctors to help your mom, and by the time they come out to explain everything, I'll already be there."
"OK, see you a little bit. Thanks, Reid," Emily sniffled again, feeling much calmer now that she had made an external connection.
She was now calm enough to compartmentalize. Her initial panic gave way to rational thinking, and she prepared herself for the journey ahead, whatever the doctors would tell her when they emerged from the chaos behind the locked doors. She had been surprised to hear Reid's voice through the cell phone. She had not meant to call Reid, of all people. Now, in her rational mind, she assigned the accident to fate. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck. Reid was not a medical doctor, but Emily would bet that he possessed more medical knowledge, at least the theoretical kind, than did any practicing physician. He possessed a greater ability to synthesize that knowledge into meaning than did anyone else she knew. Outside her rational mind, in the part of her brain that made Emily Emily, Emily longed to see her friend and colleague. In the part of her brain that was her, the phone call was not an accident.
Emily had always meant to call Reid, of all people. He was the one who understood weakness.
Master Post