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"Aceta-freaking-minophen?" Garcia echoes skeptically as soon as the nurse leaves again. "Seriously? What, you get heroically shot in the line of duty and they can't even get you the good stuff?"
"This is good," Reid says, probably too sharply, as he pulls the tray back over to himself. Nobody's stealing his jello this time. After a pause (wherein the iridescent halos surrounding every light clear from his vision) he adds sincerely, "Sorry. I don't mean to be an asshole. I just— It hurts. Sorry."
Garcia takes this in stride, though she grabs the spoon first and takes a heaping scoop as penance. "Apology accepted. Go all super saiyan on me again, though, and we're gonna have to have words."
It's been two and a half days since Reid was shot, since Hotch was stabbed, since Haley and Jack were preemptively disappeared. Rossi, as de facto leader, mandated everyone take a break after that ordeal of a long weekend, which Reid's doctors then mandated be taken in the hospital, lest he pull his significant stitches and end up in an ambulance. Again.
The second the word "break" passed his lips, Garcia was up and headed for the hospital, visiting first Hotch and then Reid when the stoic anger and sadness in the former's room got too unbearably suffocating. Reid is… at least overall more agreeable as a patient, though that changes with the hours. Case in point:
"Is this cabin fever?" Garcia asks around a mouthful of jiggly goodness. "Is that what this is?"
As Reid readies his own spoon, jiggling a little too much with the tremble of his hands, she adds, "It's red flavor."
"Ah," he tries to say lightheartedly, "my favorite kind of red."
It falls flat, though it would have inevitably when he uses said red flavored goodness to chase the hospital-generic tablets.
"I'm fine, just… shot."
"Yeah, okay." She doesn't buy it, but Penelope Garcia is first and foremost a good friend, and so reads the room and sees this is not a time to be pushy.
The thing is, though, that there isn't much else to do in a hospital room; kind of the antithesis of her hyper-stimulating Batcave, it's all sterile walls and grandma-pastel generic art. (Where do they even get that stuff, anyway? There's no way anyone ever sincerely thought it was good art.) It's the least inspiring place in the world, and the thing about her is she always needs something to do: something to look at, to talk about, to keep her hands busy and mind occupied. There's nothing to get out of a place like this.
But it's the same reason why she won't leave, because she knows Reid's the same, really, and can't let him go it alone. So Garcia's still here, even though they're run out of things to talk about, to catch up on: the book she brought him yesterday that he's already finished, the flowers she brought and (covertly) nudged Rossi to send, the ridiculously soft sweatshirt she stole from one Derek Morgan when she got shot and will never ever return, but which Reid can borrow, short term, in his time of need.
What else, what else... They already did the whole Clark Kent/Superman bit about his glasses, which he's been wearing since he forgot to take his contacts out before surgery and got irritated beyond belief. Then he took off the glasses to squint at her, triggering the farsighted (her) versus nearsighted (him) debate. They did the hospital food thing. She's about to start recounting episodes of Firefly just to have something to fill the air when Reid impatiently brushes his hair out of his face for the fifth time in as many minutes.
"Hey. Can I braid your hair?"
The inimitable doctor blinks, and blinks, like a baby deer. "Can you… What?"
"Braid your hair." With repetition, it becomes final. A plan is being formulated. Oh yeah. She's doing this. "Hold on, let me get my brush."
"You brought one?"
But no, there it is, coming out of her enormous, eye-searingly bright bag. She waves it at him like it's a magic wand that will take all his many problems away. "Tada! Now scootch."
"Oh, you're— Okay. I guess this is happening."
"Nothing fancy, I promise. Just a little French braid. Simple and tres chic, you're gonna love it."
It takes little rearranging, but soon enough Garcia's perched on the edge of the bed with a good angle to get braiding. It's... pretty nice, actually. She starts out with a brush, one of those very soft ones that Reid hasn't seen since childhood, his mother's dresser. It's the kind of thing you only see in old movies or memories, which is fitting. He doesn't think anyone's brushed his hair for him since he was a little kid, but Garcia is gentle. Probably overly so in consideration of the circumstance, but he's not going to argue. He knows what it feels like to grasp for any semblance of control, and as long as it doesn't make anything hurt any more than his current baseline, he's content to let her at it. Besides, the steady rhythm of it is soothing: the smooth, soft sound of the brush, the slightest scratch at the top of his head, the faint feeling of Garcia breathing behind him. Her hands are gentle, never pulling. Steady, as they part sections of hair to brush clean.
So Reid relaxes slightly as Garcia keeps brushing... And brushing... And brushing, it seems, long after it's necessary. He's not the hair expert here, but he's pretty sure at some point you're supposed to start actually, y'know, braiding, but again, letting her at it.
He finally caves when she starts parting his hair for the third time.
"Um. Garcia?"
Out of sight, she huffs loud enough to ruffle his now-pristine hair. "I'm more used to doing this on myself, okay? I only had brothers, and they would never sit still long enough."
"Meanwhile I'm your prisoner," Reid finishes. But still, he thinks about it and relaxes ever so slightly into the touch, the Reid equivalent of welcoming with open arms. "Okay. Can I ask why, though?"
"Trust me: there's nothing like a good braid to keep your spirits up—and nothing like knowing you have gross hair but no energy to clean it to keep you feeling every inch of le ick."
"That tracks, yeah." Every time he's been shot, stabbed, kidnapped, whatever, the recovery has been the worst part: bedrest, the distracting fog of pain. "Thanks."
"Besides, you've finally got the length for it again, Galadriel. And I'll be back every day to do upkeep, so no worries." She pauses, brush hovering. "Or I can, at least. If that's cool."
The meds are starting to kick in again, giving Reid just enough clarity away from the pain to feel truly remorseful. He turns to look her in the eye—thankfully now close enough to see clearly without his glasses—as he says, "I don't know if I'm the best arbiter of 'cool,' but I'd like that."
She nods, accessorized hair ties bouncing. "Cool. Then turn back around and let's do this thing, Rapunzel. Who knows: maybe you'll like it so much it'll become your usual look. Then I won't have to be the only fabulous freak in that office."
"I don't know if I can live up to your standards."
"I believe in you. Now scootch!"
Reid does so, shutting his eyes against the sharp fluorescents as she brushes his hair one last time. This time, her hands are calm and steady, the same easy confidence she wields at her keyboards. But it's... lingering, too. Soothing and repetitive. Almost familiar in its simplicity, like something from long ago that's still easy to remember because it was so easy in the first place.
"My mom used to braid my hair when I was a kid," Garcia says as she brushes, almost under her breath. It's quiet, but not even the buzz of the overhead lights, the machinery and hospital all around them, can drown out the words. "Always made me feel like a princess. A hundred strokes before bed." She pauses. "Or maybe that's the Brady Bunch. Well. Marcia was basically a princess. Rapunzel-esque."
"Aarne–Thompson type 310: the Maiden in the Tower. Hair consistently plays a pivotal role across retellings."
"Sure does, doc. Hold, please." The hairbrush appears in Reid's line of sight, close enough to see clearly, and he takes it. "What else you got?"
"Plaits were one of the first respectable non-veiled hairstyles for women in England in the Middle Ages. They got it from the French, though."
"That where the French braid comes from?"
Immediately, he hears his mother quoting Roman de la Rose. "Unclear, etymologically, but probably not considering the actual styles, no."
Garcia hums, fingers weaving, over and under, over and under. She pulls more hair from the sides of his head with every move but never tugs, just gently but firmly plaiting the way people have for centuries. The historicism is comfortable: old, rhythmic, and so the opposite of the bright chaos around them. In the quiet of his own mind, Reid becomes convinced everyone should have a moment like this, at least once. Safe. Cared for. In someone else's hands.
"You know, you've got some wave going on here. Little bit of a bounce in these tresses." Her face appears now too, Garcia-bright grin in place. "Anyone ever tell you you could be a shampoo model?"
She ducks back again, humming quietly. It's a song he doesn't know, but it sounds like her: bubbly, sweet, strong.
"It was curlier when I was a baby," Reid says fuzzily as the pain waxes back into the foreground. Despite his protests, he's well aware that Tylenol is not the proverbial good stuff, nor the best non-opioid option, but NSAIDs and SSRIs do not mix well, so here he is. "My mom cried at my first haircut. Swears it was never the same again." Not that your hair isn't still lovely, of course, but it was different. Like a cherub: all golden curls. My beautiful baby boy.
Garcia is the only person he knows who can pull off an actual d'aw, but she does it. "Precious. Well, all is not lost, mama's boy. You've got a little ringlet-ette going on at the ends here."
"Think m'gonna grow it out. See what happens."
"I have no doubt you'll accomplish whatever you put that big, beautiful brain to," she says, snapping a hair tie from her wrist authoritatively, "but as hair care is more my area of expertise, don't be afraid to ask for help. Let the master show you how it's done, mon amor."
A very faint laugh escapes him as she ties him off. "Okay."
"Spoiler alert: it's all in the shampoo. I'll get you some recs. Alright, hey. How's that feel?"
Lifting the arm on the same side as his wound makes his whole body screech, but Reid's other hand is free to pat around—gently, so as not to disturb her handiwork. It feels... "Nice."
"Just wait til you see it." She hops off the bed (gingerly) and starts digging around her bag again. "Hold on, I've got another mirror in here, I swear."
He doesn't really care. "Hey, Penelope?"
She flips open the compact and comes back around him to hold it in front of them both. Another one appears behind him, soon angled to show him the impressive weave of his clearly unwashed hair, but Reid isn't looking at the braid so much as he's watching Garcia's face, quietly radiating pride.
"What do you think?" She asks, still perfecting her angles—all for naught, as Reid isn't looking at the braid behind him but her face instead. He notices, for the first time, the dark circles under her eyes, the wonky angles of her own ponytails, the smudge of the tail end of her eyeliner. She looks as tired as he felt when she first showed up. But he doesn't feel that way anymore.
"Thank you."
His voice is too solemn to pass off as casual thanks, but Garcia doesn't comment on it, just smooths her hand carefully over his braided hair, almost too light to feel. Her head tips with that characteristic blend of lightheartedness and sincerity.
"You are always welcome, my friend."
A quiet moment passes between them, heavy with camaraderie and the gentle understanding of weirdos in high-stakes situations. It's like setting down a burden. It's nice: they could all use some rest today.
Still, Reid waits until she goes to pack up her hair things before speaking again.
"You know... I never had any siblings." Garcia hums, but doesn't interrupt. "I don't mind. School was bad enough, and I can't imagine I would've done well, even if I was the eldest. Even then, though, I was always gonna be an only child because, as my mom says, 'Why mess with perfection?'"
She laughs quietly, more a very audible grin than anything else. "Seriously, I love this woman."
Reid's answering smile is quieter, knowing there's more to come.
"S'just to say... I don't know what it's like to have a sister," he says with quiet deliberation, words clear and soft. "But if you ever want practice braiding someone else's hair. I'm here."
That, like fewer and fewer things these days, manages to stop Garcia in her tracks.
"Oh." When her face turns back up, it's with thin threads of tears sneaking from the corners of her eyes. She's smiling, though. She always is. "Yeah?"
Reid smiles back with the most sincerity he's found since they left for Canada almost a week ago now.
"Yeah," he nods. Then, because it's nice to be the one bringing levity to her instead of the other way around, he adds, "Besides, it's not like I could escape. You'll always know where to find me."
Garcia laughs, loud and real. "That I do. Hey. I'm gonna hug you now, okay?"
"Okay."
She does, arms wrapped gentle-sincere around his shoulders, her chin on top of his head. For a moment, the fluorescent buzz and sterile everything of the hospital is occluded by the sweet and metallic smell of her perfume, uniquely Garcia. Reid isn't entirely sure when was the last time someone hugged him longer than a few seconds. Maybe his mom when he was an especially little kid, or some other time he almost died. It's nice, and he's glad it's Garcia.
She twists around to kiss his cheek. This is also nice. And they stay there for just a moment, breathing quietly and without anywhere to go yet.
"Careful what you wish for, doctor," she says once she's found her voice again. "We'll see how you feel waking up to the exquisite torture of a morning after Virgin Margs and Manic Panic Night. Now come on, you gotta let me get one pic."
Reid, of course, asks what that means, and she's off to the races again, but it's better now. No one is talking just to talk—to fill the silence, fill the void. They're talking because they have something to say, and someone to listen. That makes all the difference.
"Y'know, they're showing Metropolis and M as a double feature in Chinatown this weekend."
"Metropolis... Is that the one with the badass robot chick you showed me?"
"Maria, yeah. I actually haven't seen it since they recovered a few scenes from a museum in Argentina. Not on the big screen, at least."
"Well, you know what they say about big screens."
"I've seen stills for comparison with better copies—it's only 16 millimeter stock and doesn't have full aperture so apparently they've gone with black borders to make it fit?"
"Mhm."
"I'm interested to see how that pans out. Actually..."