Idle

Rex is aware that it's been at least three weeks since she's stepped foot into the park that served as her own safe haven. It's also been more days since she's tried to contact the guy who had saved her life with little prompt.

She could say that she had her reasons and perhaps that would be enough but in truth she was just trying to find a way to find her footing after having escaped the hospital for her own home and spent a good week doing nothing but sleeping and watching the occasional movie, and the news hoping to find something that would give her an answer as to what she should do next.

She had never had to think so much about her next move as she did now. She had expected to die that night. It had frightened her but yet she was walking quickly dead in the late hours of ten and eleven at night to the bench feeling a bit like an idiot for being out when there was barely any light to shine her way. There was no one around which was half the point as to why she was her at this time.

She didn't find herself being alone as she thought, causing her to nearly stop but she kept going. She felt herself smiling as she past by him saying a quick, "C'mon," as she kept on walking.

It wasn't too long before he was walking beside her. "You haven't been here in three weeks, seven hours and fourteen minutes."

"Ah. I know. I would think you'd be at home. It's late." She says staring ahead and ignoring the inquisitive glances he's giving her as he keeps up with her quick stride. She doesn't find him as odd as she should for having spelt out her entire time away in a matter of days and seconds. It's more amusing than anything.

"I don't sleep well." Is all he says in reply and she just nods.

"Since you're following me you can help me with the groceries. I have to pick up a few things." She slides her eyes slightly to her left where he is next to her. She notices that he has a insulated cup in his hand and he takes a long pull out of whatever it is. "We can talk too. I assume you still want to..." She pauses her face uncertain. "Talk to me?"

"Of course." She can see his smile appear and she feels little elation from that. She's still unsure of how she'll explain what happened and why she left before she was supposed to leave the hospital. The latter felt more difficult to discuss than the fact that she had been stabbed.

It takes about ten minutes to get to the small grocers that stays open late and opens early that she frequents when she finds the need to.

The woman at the register beams at Rex as she slips in. She waves at her shyly before grabbing a basket and beginning to weave around to get to the first section that she needs to go to: produce.

"Where would you like to start?" She eyes a few oranges and grapes before taking a bag of green grapes and a container of strawberries.

"How are you feeling, Rex?" She is moving quickly but his long legs help him keep up with her. By the time she slips into the aisle that holds all sorts of jams and condiments she pauses in her steps to answer him and looks up at him.

"Better, thank you. How have you been, Reid?" He starts to reply but is startled by the fact that she's looking at him. He thought there was something wrong but she seems fine. He hates to tell her how concerned he was. They don't know each other well. It's strange to be worried about a stranger yet he does that often. Not only when he's working but now that he has someone he wants to talk to who doesn't exactly know him.

"Very busy. What do you do?" She begins moving again as he poses the question. She grabs a jar of apricot preservative and a loaf bread that is on the other side before walking down a few more aisles to get to the cereals.

She's shifting from one side to the other and for a minute Reid assumes she isn't going to answer him but she does. "It's nothing special. I'm a hostess and a guide. I don't work much but I do okay." He watches as her shoulders heave a little as she sighs and grabs a box of Cheerios. Not the honey nut kind just plain Cheerios. Not everyone likes those but he remembers munching on them as a kid if his memory serves him right and it should.

They're at the register before he can get the next question from under his tongue. The woman who smiled at Rex quickly rings her purchases up and Rex begins pay for it but Reid has already handed over a bill that covers most of it. She hadn't gotten much but she could have.

She gives him a surprised look but she isn't annoyed with him, thankfully. He even grabs the two bags of food before she can object and then they're walking.

"I have my car if..." He starts again only to see her hair shifting with the night wind as she shakes her head. "I don't live that far." She tells him quickly shooting down that idea before he could fully form it.

After a few beats, Reid realizes that perhaps he won't have as much time as he hoped on the day that they crossed paths again. So he's talking quickly. It's in a manner that's only familiar to his friends and people who get him riled up to the point that he's telling them all the horrible things they've done and how they'll pay for it later. It's a quiet type of ferocity but he's not close to being that intense this night.

He's quick.

It's something that Rex forgot. "Do you need help?"

She tries to be quicker but she feels taken off guard. "No. I'm fine."

"You said that. I took care of the hospital fee."

"I'm sorry if that put you in a bad place." She jerks as she looks at him. She looks thoroughly stricken by the thought of her disappearing act doing something horrible to him.

He waves it off. "It wasn't that bad. I was happy to help. I'm not comfortable with people dying on my watch."

They both stopped. Rex was observant even when she was distressed. He hadn't the opportunity to really see her in that light. The last time she couldn't even talk. She watched him carefully and she heard the pain in his throat. Reid sounded stiff when he said that last part.

"Does that happen a lot in your line of work?"

There was this thing that she hadn't told him. She knew who he was. He hadn't told her exactly but she did know what he did. He was too smart to have a menial job. Like hers.

"I...I try to not make a habit of it."

Reid was staring ahead, and Rex was looking at him. "That's what happened to her, wasn't it?"

Her voice was soft when she asked that. "Maeve. She died, you already told me that. You were there though weren't you?"

He made her sad sometimes. It wasn't like they were connected in any way but it was almost worse than that. She could feel the way he did when he said certain things or she could just ache at the sight of him in pain.

"She was killed." He's correcting Rex and she doesn't say anything for a second. "She loved me and that's what was supposed to make it okay."

Rex doesn't want to know everything. She starts to realize that when she takes the first bag out of his arms when she notices the way he clings to them.

She does want to help him. So she gives him something that he hadn't asked of her yet. "I was running away from someone I was involved with once when I got stabbed. I am sorry about Maeve, by the way. I know I haven't said that. I don't really do this much but um..." She stops for a moment moving her hair out of her face as she gets ready to say the one piece of genuine advice she can give him right now. It's something she's had to learn herself. "We all have to make sacrifices sometimes and that's when it gets tricky." She knows that it'll only confuse him more but it's all she can think to say with her chest so tight and her mouth trembling.

She has the other bag in her hand before he can wrap his head around what she's saying. She turns.

She almost tells him about where she works because if she gives her the time to think about it, she is fond of him and he'd probably like it. Spencer Reid isn't like most people. He'd find old art to be fascinating. She happens to really like it too.

She'll think about it.

She does have something that she wants to give him. She forgot that it was in her pocket.

"Wait here, a moment." She tells him before dashing up the steps and opening the door that leads into her apartment building.

Reid takes in the outside of the building. It's nothing that he hasn't seen but it does concern him. He isn't the best place for someone to be living and he remembers the gun that's on his hip. He's almost habit for him to have it now.

The building itself has no lighting on the outside but he sees a few people moving and peering through their curtains.

He thanks Rex silently when she comes back down with a rolled up piece of paper in her hands. She places it in his hand when she gets to him.

"In case you need to contact me and I'm not around. I don't exactly have a phone." She laughs a little. She's told him this before but it stills feels odd to admit that aloud. That's just unheard of in this day and age. That's how people contact each other.

This is how she stays sane.

Reid unfolds the paper and finds a number scribbled on it. He briefly thinks back to the number that she left the voicemail with. It's almost similar.

"You should try to sleep, Doctor. Isn't that supposed to be you tell me that?"

He actually laughs at that. "I'm not that kind of doctor."

She is walking back to the steps when she tells him. "I know. See you later."

How does she know, he wonders? He never mentioned that. He'd have to add it to the list of mysteries surrounding Rex but for now he headed across a few blocks back to his car.

His phone beeped alerting him to an incoming text.

PENELOPE

What are you doing on the south side, Genius?

He shakes his head but sends her a quick reply as he gets ready to back out.

Walking. I will be safely in my house soon. Go to bed Garcia.

He knows why she worries. Why all of them worry but he's fine. Tonight he is fine.