AN: Spoilers for Zugzwang (8x12). I don't own Criminal Minds.

I can feel my composure slipping away from me as I stare at her, crumpled on the floor with a halo of crimson blood around her head. I collapse next to her and sob as I hold her hand. I lean over and kiss her forehead, wrapping myself around her as if I cannot bear to let go. I cannot bear to let go.

I love you.

It is Hotch who finally drags me away from her body.

I can feel the rest of the team watching me go, and I think that it's JJ who lays a gentle hand on my shoulder as we pass her. The team has never seen me like this before. Even after Tobias Hankle, I had a shred of dignity and fighting spirit left. It occurs to me that the last time I had allowed myself to fully break down and lose control was after the horrible incident with Harper Hillman and the football team. Another incident with a blindfold, the corner of my mind noted.

Maeve had promised to give me some positive experiences to tie to a blinfold when we finally met, but now that would never happen.

My eyes have lost the ability to see clearly, my vision smeared with tears. I cannot stop crying. Sobbing. My breath is rapid and uneven, and of this I am aware as I am ushered out of the room. I feel myself leaning heavily on Hotch as I am guided outside. There's a pain radiating from my left arm, where the bullet hit me. I cannot understand why I need to be treated for it though, as the pain in my heart from the loss of her is far greater than any pain I feel anywhere else. I have lost the ability to comprehend anything. Nothing makes sense anymore.

I feel a headache start to pound at my skull and worm itself into my brain. I touch my head lightly with the tips of my fingers on my right hand. I blink, startled. I had not had a headache since the first call from Maeve. She had been my salvation, in a sense.

Maeve Donovan. The love of my life, if only for two thousand, four hundred and twelve hours. (About eight million, six hundred, eighty three thousand and two hundred seconds. One hundred, forty four thousand, seven hundred and twenty minutes. Fourteen and a third weeks. Three and a third months.) No, that was inaccurate. I may have spoken with her for only a hundred and a half days, but she had been on my mind for much longer. I had spent every single second of every week looking forward to the next phone call, the next time I could hear her sweet voice.

Whatever way I looked at it, my time with her had been too short.

There's a hand on my shoulder, and I wake briefly from my reverie to be ushered into an ambulance by a paramedic that looks like rather like Maeve. Or at least, he looks like Maeve until I blink rapidly to unsuccessfully clear my vision. In fact, everyone looks like Maeve. Maeve, Maeve, Maeve.

What I wouldn't give for her to be alive and safe right now.

I gather enough sense to try and say 'no narcotics' out of habit, as I always do when headed to hospitals, but it comes out of my mouth like a whimper. Hotch seems to understand though, and translates this to the paramedic (who no longer looks like her). I'm grateful for this, as I'm tempted to accept the drugs, just this once. Something to distract me from my misery.

Hotch sits across from me during the ride there, and stares at me with concerned, brooding eyes as the paramedics flutter around me, trying their best to alleviate my pain. As they do this, I know that they cannot heal me. Not really.

I've stopped crying, but my breath is far from steady. In place of the heart-wrenching and shock grief I had felt earlier, I feel empty, like a void, as if a part of me died with her. Perhaps this is true.

Maeve had once told me, when I was talking to her after a really brutal case that had gotten to me on a personal level, that I needed to learn to distance myself from the victims. This, she said, was the only way I would survive. I had disagreed at that time, telling her that that was empathy and it was an asset to have.

There was no way I could distance myself from Maeve. And even if there were, I wouldn't. She was the best part of my life.

And now she was gone.

Morgan had been wrong. Two thousand, four hundred and twelve hours was all I had gotten to spend with her. To make matters worse, the last words I had said directly to her were that I did not love her. Nothing could be further from the truth, and, thankfully, I think she knew that.

The ambulance stops and I am guided off the vehicle. The emergency room is too bright, and I stumble on my feet. Hotch and some paramedics hold me upright, though. I'm glad Hotch is here with me. He probably understands how I feel right now. As I'm taken into a private room, I barely notice the stares of those waiting in the emergency room. I probably look like a mess right now.

I am a mess right now.

Some doctor working in the emergency room is examining me. Firm hands caress my wound and assess the damage and meaningless chatter fills my ears as they discuss my condition. I know that they cannot see the real damage, the one done to my emotions. The doctors seem to sure of themselves. I envy them as I, unlike them, have no idea what I'm doing anymore.

Hotch signs some papers on my behalf and I'm taken to be prepared for the surgery to remove the bullet from my left arm. Honestly, I can't wait for them to put me to sleep so that they can work on me. I need a break from this world. A world without one Maeve Donovan.

For the first time in my life, I long for darkness.

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone. We find it with another." - Thomas Merton