A/N: Okay, I just got around to watching the recent episodes of Criminal Minds. I was more than ticked off when the producers deigned to cut Prentiss' character in half and JJ completely out of the show. Needless to say, I missed me some good writing prompts.

So here's the sitch: This particular chapter takes place in the hospital waiting room during the episode "Lauren." This is before JJ delivers the verdict and it is Hotch's POV. It is assumed that Hotch and Emily were in a discreet, unknown relationship for a while before this takes place, so do keep that in mind. I'd like to think that it started somewhere mid fourth season but the juicy details of all that are all up to you.

As always, I do not own Criminal Minds nor any of it's characters. If I did, I would keep them on the show indefinitely :) Regardless, all rights are reserved to those who are within rights to reserve them. And on that happy legal note, Enjoy!

Hotch stared down at his hands. On the surface he was much the same as his fellow Agents: bent over with worry covering his face. On the inside, though, his heart was breaking. On the inside his mind was reeling; searching for hope, bartering shamelessly with the God he'd stopped talking to since his divorce, praying incessantly for her to be okay.

The wooden stake had gone in deep, he'd seen it himself: 6 inches in at least. The sight alone had nearly upturned hi stomach. Seeing her there, on the stretcher as they proceeded to bus her to the hospital, seeing her pale face: weak and in so much pain as to push her past the brink, that was what killed him. The sight of her there was one he'd planned on never having to see in his life.

On some sick, subconscious level, he felt the innate urge to laugh at the absurdity of her injury: a wooden stake. He remembered the day Garcia had hacked Emily's high school yearbook account, revealing the agent's rendezvous of gothic fashion. She'd later confessed on the plane home from the case that it was intended to be more of literary tribute than a Hollywood shout out.

Hotch looked up from his stack of files briefly as Prentiss came to sit in the seat diagonal to his. She seemed tired, the lingering details of the case undoubtedly troubling her. Hotch had noticed that about her. While the other team members would sleep or read or drown out the latent horror with music, she always appeared to ponder the various aspects of the cases, reviewing every intricate detail in her head.

To tell the truth, it worried him. He'd already lost on agent to the job before. She too had not been able to let go of the cases, of the images of bloodshed and carnage that made up their daily workload. But Prentiss, to her credit, did give the impression of residual stress. She rarely looked disturbed or grievous. More often than not, she was pensive, as if attempting to catalog the previous events. She compartmentalized rather than dwelled and that made all the difference.

Indeed, Hotch recognized that same look on her face tonight. He waited for a few minutes, allowing her to digest the case and it's elements before politely clearing his throat. "So," he started, his eyes flickering up from the open case in his hands to her deep, dark, eyes, "Winona Ryder phase, huh?"

Prentiss scowled deeply, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You weren't supposed to see those." She sighed, adjusting in her jet seat to achieve maximum comfort. "But for your information, sir, I was not much of a Winona Ryder fan. And God only knows I wasn't emulating her. To be honest, I was more of an Anne Rice fan, myself."

Hotch's eyebrow sky-rocketed up his forehead in surprise, "Vampires, Prentiss?" The woman never ceased to amaze him.

"It was just a rebellious phase! I didn't –"she paused, "don't get along with my mother." She explained, "What with our constant moving and my resentment, I guess I figured the best way to get back at her was to adopt an image that would, I dunno, cause her embarrassment or something. It wasn't much of revenge but it was all I really had on me."

Hotch studied her for a moment, filing away the bits of newfound Intel into his little, mental "Prentiss" file. Reveling in this bought of revealed personal information, he was distracted enough to not notice the odd look she had focused on him. At least for a while he was.

"What?" he asked finally.

Prentiss smirked and sat back in her chair, "Oh nothing, sir, I was just surprised is all. It strikes me as a bit unusual for a man such as yourself to be so knowledgeable in the various works of Anne Rice vampire literature."

Hotch felt the corner of his lip twitch in involuntary amusement. God, even then, even before they'd begun seeing each other, she'd known how to push his buttons. Even more so afterward…

When he'd heard JJ account the nature of her undercover relationship with Doyle, his blood had all but boiled. And not just because the idea of her with someone else –even beforehand- made him jealous as hell but also because that relationship made this attack personal. It meant she was going to get hurt. It meant that tat while they might be afforded more time to find her that time would be at her expense.

And it had been.

He looked around him, noting the various positions of grief that surrounded him: Derek's furious tension, Penelope's barely controllable dry sobs, Dave's silent mutters of prayers, Spencer's nervous rocking, and Ashley's tight, curled form.

They all needed Emily to be okay. They needed to be assured of that.

JJ came around the doorway solemnly. She looked uncomfortable, tense and exhausted. Hotch saw it in her eyes, in her posture, in her face: Emily was no coming home.

A/N 2: Just as a side note, the flashback takes place before the relationship between Emily and Hotch had started. Anywho, reviews are a good thing and hopefully feed the little people in my head that make me write these lovely things.