Wildfire

Reid felt like he kept ending up in this position. Kept ending up in front of Jasmine’s apartment door, palms sweating, heart beating furiously. After five more calls and seven more texts, Reid had skipped right past angry to worried. She always responded, maybe it wasn’t right away, and maybe she wasn’t always happy, but she responded.

With a shaky hand, Reid reached up, knocked on the door and held his breath. Almost immediately he regretted it. He didn’t even think when the plane landed, just hopped in his car and drove furiously across town to Jasmine’s apartment. And now that he was there he couldn’t stop thinking about what time it was or if she was even going to answer or if she was even home. He honestly didn’t think, could only focus on getting the feel of her skin under his hand, could only think about ridding himself of the terrible emptiness he had been feeling for days.

But after a few more knocks and five more minutes, Reid felt his heart sink. Jasmine wasn’t home and probably wouldn’t be for a while. Just when he was beginning to turn away from the door, already contemplating on drinking himself into a stupor, he heard something move in the apartment. With blood rushing in his ears, he grabbed the door handle and went to twist it.

It opened easily.

The apartment inside was dark, the only light coming from the faint glow of the lampposts outside, seeping in through the windows. And it was deadly silent. He could make out the shapes of the furniture, the overstuffed armchair in the corner, the TV stand with stacks of movies around it.

“Jaz?”

Reid’s voice was grating to his own ears, unbearably loud in the quiet space. He heard a small rustle coming from the couch, but from where he was standing he could only see the back of it.

“Hey, sorry to just barge in here like this, but you weren’t answering my calls and-”

The last few words dried up in his throat as he came around to the front the couch and saw Jasmine lying there. She was curled up on the cushions a blanket that was too small for her wrapped around her body, her bare toes poking out from underneath the frayed bottom. The garish yellow light from the street fell on her face, making her eyes look wet and shiny, her cheeks hollow, and the normal rich olive of her skin pale and sickly.

“Jasmine? What’s wrong?”

Her small hand came out from under the blanket to reach out and grab the edge of his jacket and pull until he was bent down next to the couch. At first Reid thought that maybe she was sick but then he realized her eyes looked wet and shiny because they were. She was crying.

Reid didn’t know what to do, other than take her cold hand in his and press a kiss to the tops of her delicate knuckles. Apparently that was all he had to do and she willing went into his arms after that, dragging the blanket with her until she was situated comfortably on his lap as they leaned against the couch. Reid ran a hand through her tangled black hair as she cried, the tears soaking into the shoulder of his jacket. She didn’t seem to need anything more than someone there to hold her.

It was a long time later that Jasmine finally stopped crying and was ready to talk. Reid didn’t push her and just let her say what she needed in her own time.

“There was a family that came through the ER earlier tonight. Their car had been hit by a drunk driver on their way home from a nice dinner. The car wrapped around a telephone pole, and the pregnant mom in the front passenger seat managed to climb out and pull her husband from the driver seat and her three year old son from the back. She got them away from the wreckage before it went up in flames.”

Jasmine took a shaky breath and pulled the worn blanket tighter around herself.

“By the time the paramedics got there, the husband was pronounced dead at the scene and the son was in critical condition and rushed to the hospital. I did what I could to try and save him but he slipped away before I really even had a chance. And the baby’s umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck two times and maybe if the accident hadn’t happened he would’ve been fine, but the strain of pulling her family out of the destroyed car had tightened it until his oxygen was cut off. She was two weeks from her due date. I had to tell her that in a matter of three hours she had lost her whole family.”

A few more tears slipped out and she used the tattered end of the blanket to wipe them away.

“I could barely get the words out. How does a person deal with news like that?”

Reid could see the guilt and grief over a situation that she couldn’t control, over something that wasn’t even her fault, plainly on Jasmine’s face. He could see the anger and despair and confusion and he wanted nothing more than to make it all go away. But he had no idea how. And he had no words to say to make her feel better.

A little yawn escaped her mouth and Reid thought that he could at least do something about that. He gathered her up in his arms and carried her into her bedroom to lay her on top of the zebra sheets stretched across her bed. She was still dressed in her hospital scrubs and he carefully pulled them off her body until she was left only in her underwear. He found an oversized t-shirt tucked under her pillow and with a little bit of coaxing helped her slip it over her head. Almost instantly afterwards she curled back into a little ball.

Somewhere along the way the blanket she had been clutching fell and he went back to go pick up. When he laid the faded scrap of fabric over her body it barely even covered just her legs, but she didn’t seem to mind. Reid didn’t understand the importance of the thing but knew that right now she needed it.

“Will you stay with me?” Jasmine whispered, her voice rough and scratchy from all the crying.

“Yeah, of course, Jaz.”

He shucked his own clothing, stopping at his boxers and undershirt and climbed onto the bed with her. She was shivering slightly and he pulled the purple comforter over the both of them before wrapping his arms around her until they were pressed snugly together. His hands found hers under the covers, her fingers going from squeezing her little blanket fiercely to gripping his hands until he could feel her nails pressing into his palms.

“Just take a deep breath. I’ll be here in the morning.”

She relaxed then, sinking into the mattress and his arms, her breath evening out slowly. Reid could smell the scent of her skin, could feel how perfectly they fit together and could only think about how he had come to ease his own pain and wanted to ease hers instead.

It was the first time that Reid thought maybe what they had was something a little bit more.