It happened so fast that Spencer didn't even realize it.

He was flashing a badge, saw manic eyes widen, then Bang!

A dull impact below his ribs. His computer mind stuttered to a halt.

His ears were ringing. He placed a hand to himself that came away red. His legs were suddenly weak.

He fell, and the pain hit.

An unbearable agony burst in him, tearing out a brief scream. He couldn't see, he couldn't think, his entire being was the throbbing mass of hurt centered in his middle.

Something pressed down, hard. The pain, impossibly, increased. A desperate whine escaped him.

"Reid? Spencer! C'mon, kid, talk to me!"

With a great effort, Spencer recognized the voice pleading with him.

"Morgan?" he whispered.

"Oh, thank god. Just hang on, Reid. The medics are on their way."

Spencer, blinking, picked out Morgan's worried face floating above him, and discovered the pressure was coming from his hands.

He rolled his head to the side, and saw a mess of gore, a prone figure with the back of his head blown off. A gun glinted next to the body.

"Morgan," Spencer forced, "I think I've been shot."

Morgan's laugh was laced with panic. "You think, boy genius?"

Pain blotted his vision. A sharp increase of pressure on the wound brought him violently back to awareness.

"Hey! No falling asleep, you hear me? Talk to me! Or don't, actually, just stay awake! Listen to my voice, okay? Obey your elders, pipsqueak! Let me tell you, when you first showed up you were like six and the entire team thought…"

Spencer tried to listen to Morgan's ramblings, which jumped from reminiscing about past cases to childhood stories to the rest of the team to his dog with incongruent urgency. The hole in his chest was sucking him under. The pain was slowly fading, instead being replaced by a cold, creeping numbness.

"Stay awake, Reid, please!"

He tried. He really did.

"Please, kid. I can't do this without you."

His eyes slid shut.