A.N.: Hi everyone, I'm terribly sorry that I made you wait this long for the final chapter. I don't know why but it was quite hard to write, maybe because finishing a story is never easy if you want to do a good job. Or maybe it was because of my tons of end-of-the-year exams. Thank you all for reading it this far and thanks for the wonderful feedback you gave. It was a great pleasure to write to such a nice audience. Ah, and of course a very big thanks to REIDFANATIC who beta-read Fugitive and helped a lot.

Chapter Fifteen

"It'll be okay, Reid," said Hotch.

The young agent looked back at him with a mixture of gratefulness and apology, but his vision was already blurry and he had trouble focusing. The sudden decrease of the pain when the policeman let go of his arm made him light-headed. He heard Hotch say something about a dislocated shoulder to the paramedics who had finally arrived, but he didn't feel anything when he was loaded onto a stretcher and carried into the ambulance.

Finally, just as he thought that he was about to submerge into unconsciousness, he became aware of the inside of the ambulance. An oxygen mask was put over his nose and mouth, and it felt so good to breathe in the pure gas. Opening his eyes, he found one of the paramedics examining his arm and Morgan sitting beside him.

"Hey kid, you're back?" The dark-skinned agent half asked, half stated.

"Uh huh," Reid agreed through the oxygen mask, then added simply, "my shoulder hurts."

Morgan laughed. "Wow, you're one tough guy. Haven't you heard that men don't complain about pain?"

"Sure," Reid mumbled, his speech still sluggish. "But I'm in an ambulance, aren't I? I thought I'm supposed to tell them where it hurts…"

"That's right, young man," the nearer paramedic joined in. "Don't hesitate to tell us anything that feels wrong." He waited for a couple of seconds, but Reid didn't add anything. "So far it seems you were extremely lucky. You only have a dislocated shoulder which we'll fix in no time, and a bruise on your forehead, probably a mild concussion but nothing serious. You'll be fine."

"Yeah that's what you received in the explosion," the other paramedic interjected, "but I see an older wound here apparently made by a gun."

Reid gasped as the bandage Jessica had made for the gunshot wound was pulled off, and he looked at Morgan. The older agent's eyes were full of guilt and he looked as if he simply didn't know what to say; Reid realized right away that it was very stupid of him to think that Morgan shot him on purpose. So he coughed nervously and stuttered, "yeah, that was… an accident, earlier…"

To his relief, the paramedics didn't ask more questions. However, they turned their attention to the young agent's shoulder.

"On three," one of them said. Morgan put a reassuring hand on his young colleague's good shoulder, and Reid closed his eyes, trying to prepare himself. But he still underestimated the pain that exploded in his whole torso as the joint popped back into place; he wanted to scream but found that the sound was caught in his throat and the only thing he had managed to do was to gasp and pant. The inside of the vehicle blurred for a moment and the feeling of Morgan's grip on his other shoulder felt extremely distant, like it was someone else's body. He could hear people talking around him but their voices were muffled and he was able to comprehend their words only long seconds later.

"Kid, you with me?" He finally heard Morgan's question and wondered how many times he'd asked it before. He nodded tiredly.

"That was all," the paramedic said. "Your shoulder's in the right place now. Does it feel better?"

"It still hurts," Reid muttered, ignoring Morgan's former teasing. To be honest, it felt almost the same. The pain was still there, throbbing and pulsing, and it seemed to him that if he tried to move his arm, it would rip off.

"It'll get better, then," the paramedic smiled. "I'll give you something for the pain until then."

"Just something mild," Reid mumbled, "non-narcotic…"

The paramedic glanced up at Morgan with a question in his eyes, but the dark-skinned agent just nodded, his gaze saying 'do as he said'.

"Hey kid, how're you holdin' up?" He asked after a couple of minutes. Reid's eyes were closed and he had seemingly fallen asleep, but he moved his head at Morgan's question.

"Still living..."

"That's good. I have good news; I almost forgot to mention it. We caught Phoebe."

The young agent opened his eyes and looked at his older colleague with a relieved gaze. "Really?"

"Yeah, she thought she'd taken care of you by blowing up that house. She didn't even protest; she was so content with herself. But you got away," Morgan grinned and shook his head with a proud expression, "you should have seen her face when she saw you coming, man!"

Reid smiled with him. If the team had Phoebe, they had the proof of his innocence. And if Strauss wasn't so pig-headed, then everything would be just fine.

"I hate hospitals," Reid declared a couple of hours later as he was sitting in his half reclined bed, looking at JJ, Prentiss and Garcia who weren't even trying to hide their serenity over his annoyance.

"Come on, Spencer, you've been in hospitals more times than any of us," JJ giggled, "you should have adjusted to it by now."

"Very funny," Reid rolled his eyes. "But I'm totally fine this time. Nothing hurts anymore, I can breathe and even walk on my own. I don't understand why I have to be here at all…"

"Honey, show some patience," Garcia caressed his hand calmingly. "It's only for a day and you can go home. The doctors said it's necessary for you to stay for the night."

Reid almost said something nasty about the stubborn doctors but he swallowed it at the last moment. "I hate this smell," he said instead. "It all reminds me of bad times, bad memories. Some of my nightmares have actually taken place in a hospital."

"Spence, you sound like a whining child," JJ smiled, but the young agent gave her a killer look.

"Hey, certain smells can actually have a great influence on the working of your brain, didn't you know? There were experiments carried out by scientists who examined the effect of smelling different scents while sleeping. If you smell something bad, something you don't like while you're in the REM phase, your chances of having a bad dream are significantly increased."

"Rest your brain, Reid," Prentiss laughed. "Otherwise it will get overheated."

The young agent shifted a little, trying to find a more comfortable position because, to be honest, his shoulder had started feeling sore as the painkillers were wearing off. He would never have admitted it to his colleagues though.

"Tell me about Phoebe," he asked instead. "Morgan told me he caught her. Has she confessed anything?"

Prentiss sighed. "Well, she appears to be a tough nut. She denies blowing up the house, keeps telling it was an accident and that we don't have proof that you were in the house. She also denies murdering Jacobson."

"Yeah but don't worry," JJ added, "they'll find out that she used explosives, and there'll be your deposition too… As far as I know Phoebe doesn't know how well you are. Her last information about you is that you were taken to hospital in a critical condition."

"Let me see her, just once," Garcia growled, "I'll scratch her eyes out for doing this to my junior G-man."

Reid smiled amusedly, but it faded away quickly and a shadow of concern appeared on his face. "What about Strauss?" He asked.

"Oh, don't worry about her," JJ calmed him. "Hotch has taken care of a lot of things. She only wants to give you a warning for not showing up when you were called in, but if the court finds Phoebe guilty, and they most certainly will, you can explain that you were attacked and they will believe every word you say."

"That's good;" Reid sighed and leaned back against the pillows. That was when the door suddenly opened and the three other male members of the team appeared with what looked like four liters of coffee.

"Hi there ladies," Morgan greeted them, "uh, kid, you here too?" He joked as he walked around the bed and put down two steaming cups on the bedside table.

"Wow, that's mine?" Reid pointed excitedly at the coffee with his good arm, so happy to see his favorite drink that he even let Morgan's tease slip past his ear. "Great, I haven't had one in, I don't know how long now!"

"That's exactly why we like you, Reid," Rossi grinned, "you're so easy to gratify."

"So, how are you?" Hotch asked as all of them settled down in chairs around the bed.

"I'm good," Reid answered, burning his tongue with the hot coffee as he hurried to swallow it. "Um… the pain is less than minimal and I'm actually bored to death. The nurses want me to rest all the time; they even refused to let me play chess."

"Hey kid, can you do anything else besides complain?" Morgan grinned at his own joke.

Reid looked offended. "If I remember correctly, I just said that I'm not in pain, so what do you want from me?"

"Hey, just kidding," his older colleague smiled.

"Phoebe Dowd's been taken care of," Hotch stated in the temporary silence. "You don't have to worry about her anymore."

"Thank you guys," Reid nodded, "for not giving up on me."

Prentiss shook her head. "Don't be stupid Reid, why would we ever turn our back on you?"

"I can't imagine any situation dire enough for that to happen either," JJ added.

The young agent looked down into his lap in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. There was a… couple of days when I was thinking that you all wanted to just… catch me. That you didn't believe I was attacked."

"I don't blame you, sweetie," Garcia hurried to comfort him, "awful things happened to you and we weren't able to help. You thought you were alone."

"Yeah, and I was confused…" Reid went on. "In the forest I thought it would be okay and you'd get her, but then I saw Morgan aim at me and I panicked," he admitted.

"Oh my God," Morgan whispered. "I thought it was one of Phoebe's men. The shots were coming from that direction. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Reid was still looking at his hands, regretting bringing up the incident. He really didn't blame Morgan and didn't want him to feel bad about it. "Hey, um, does anyone by any chance know where I can get some more sugar? My coffee is a bit bitter," he added, hoping to destroy the tense silence. But Morgan was still looking so guilty it almost broke Reid's heart.

Fortunately Rossi came to his aid. "More sugar? I can't believe it; we shoved about three kilos into your cup!"

The girls giggled too. Much to Reid's surprise, Hotch dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out half a dozen packets of sugar. "I had a feeling that these would come in handy," he said with a subtle smile.

"Wow, thanks," the young agent took one and started to open it slowly, cautiously moving the fingers on his right hand. Risking a glance around his teammates, he saw contentedly that even Morgan was smiling weakly now. The others started joking again about something; Reid didn't really listen to them as he worked on the wrapping, relieved.

To tell the truth, of course, he didn't need that extra sugar at all; Rossi had really packed his coffee full of it. He just wanted to lighten up their faces again. He didn't want to see any more worried faces.

At least not for a while.

WARNING! DO NOT read further if you don't like open endings! I can't help it but I'm a huge fan of leaving things a bit open... probably because when I like a story I want it to continue forever and never end:) So I apologize to those of you who don't like it... to them, this story ends here, because I don't plan to write a sequel... at least not in the near future.

You have been warned.

Nine days later, as Reid walked into the bullpen to his first workday after the trial, he was met with a neat, white envelope on the top of the huge pile of paper on his desk. There was nothing on it except for his name, written with longish-shaped letters in a style that was quite elegant but modest at the same.

The trial had gone well. Although there was no proof against Phoebe in the murder of Douglas Jacobson, they had the tape on which three of her men caught Reid and dragged him away; and two of the men were later found sitting in the car with her while escaping from the exploding house. Since Hotch had somehow managed to talk Strauss into leaving even that warning she wanted to give Reid, the young agent was heard and with his statement and the obvious motivation Phoebe had, the woman was sentenced to years in prison.

Walking towards his desk, Reid thought about how many criminals he and his team had vanquished. Most of them were arrested and taken to court, but there were some who resisted and ended up being shot. Phillip Dowd was unfortunately one of them. The young agent thought worriedly about how many relatives of the dead criminals could be living out there, wanting to get revenge for their child, parent, sibling or friend. What if they found them again? Hotch, Morgan… almost everyone had blood on their hands. Who could tell which one of them would be the next victim of a desperate man or woman like Phoebe?

But then he thought about what Garcia had said about the threatening messages his teammates got. There are always angry, vengeful and disappointed people who think the arrested criminal is innocent. They often wrote letters to try to scare the BAU. But they never succeed. They just wanted to gain attention, to release some of their anger. They didn't even take it seriously in most of the cases.

This thought gave Reid some comfort. As he sat down at his desk, he curiously took the white envelope in his hand. It didn't look like some formal letter, more like a party invitation or something like that. Or maybe someone just wanted to send him a get-well card but didn't know the address.

Opening the envelope, a small white sheet fell out of it. There was a message on it, written with the same elegant letters, and for a moment, Reid thought that it really was a party invitation.

But it wasn't.

Agent Reid,

I'm sorry we didn't have more time to talk. I regret that I wanted to kill you without hearing what you had to say. I think you and I could have learned a lot of interesting things about each other. I'd be glad if you could come over and see me sometimes, if it's not a problem. I've got a lot of things to tell you.

P.D.

Thanks again for reading and reviewing!

p.s. My next fanfiction (if I'll have the time to write) will be about Supernatural with my favorite character of it in the main role. Anyone interested?:)

FFV