Criminal Minds/Highlander: You Only Live Twice, revisited
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The laughter, the taunting it was all still fresh in his mind when he took a deep breath and woke up with a gasp. His hands went to his chest where the knife had been repeatedly plunged into his chest, but his fingers only met warm skin. At first that confused him; hadn't he gone to bed wearing his t-shirt? Maybe he'd been too tired.
At first, he thought that he'd had another nightmare, but as the features of his living room came into view, he quickly rid himself of that notion. He was sitting on the floor of his living room and the carpet underneath him was sticky with dried blood.
An awful lot of dried blood; in fact, the amount of dried blood that seemed to suggest a large wound or a number of wounds. He looked down at his torso where his shirt was ripped the shreds and covered with more blood.
In the nightmare, George Foyet, otherwise known the Boston Reaper, had shot the wall beside his head. A glance upwards showed him that the hole from the bullet was exactly where he expected it to be. This was beginning to feel strange, hinky, to use one of the words that Garcia was so fond of. Was he still dreaming?
Almost without thinking about it, he put hand into his pocket and retrieved his cell phone, immediately calling Garcia. "And good morning to you, sir." She chirped cheerfully. "How may I help you before you get to the office?"
"Garcia." His voice felt strange, hoarse; like he hadn't used it for a while. Did cell phones work during dreams?
"Sir, are you alright? I was concerned when I came in and you weren't here yet this morning, but Rossi said we should let you sleep. But I had a hunch and so I pinged your cell phone. I know I shouldn't have done it, especially when I realized you were still at home, and that Rossi was right, but then he usually... "
"Garcia. I need you to tell me something." He said, interrupting her stream of words. "Something that I don't know so I can ask you about it later."
"Sir?" Her voice was questioning.
"Garcia. I can't tell if I'm awake."
"Okay. Okay. Um... I know! Last night I had Thai food for dinner, but not the egg rolls, but apparently you can get sick, and like yucky sick from eating undercooked eggs and this place I ordered from, well, they wouldn't have been my first choice had I known that."
"Thank you. I'm glad you didn't eat the egg rolls." Hotch said; he was almost operating on auto-pilot. Anything to avoid thinking about the puddle of blood he was sitting in.
"Hotch. What's going on?" Her voice sounded small, unsure.
He almost didn't want to say the next words. "Garcia, I remember George Foyet stabbing me."
"What?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
"I thought it was a nightmare, but my living room looks like a crime scene. And so do I."
"Uh, what do you mean? It looks like a crime scene? Like someone staged it?"
"If they did, they did an incredible job doing it. There's a rather large amount of blood and yet I don't feel wounded at all. I...I can't find an explanation for this and frankly, I really hope that when I ask you about this later, you won't remember this conversation."
"So wait? You just got killed and now you're alive?" She sounded rather confused and to honest, so was he.
"Possibly yes; but I haven't ruled out drugs, or something else. I don't know what I should do."
"Okay. We'll... we'll think of something. I uh... let me take a look around."
"The dark web has something on spontaneous resurrections?" That sounded ridiculous coming out of his mouth and slightly snarky. Was it a by product of surviving a stabbing or did he really sound like that?
"Possibly." There was a pause and the sound of computer keys clacking before she spoke again. "Huh. Okay, that's weird."
"What's happening?" The situation aside, Garcia didn't usually use that tone unless they were about to find out something weird and unexplained.
"Someone is trying to trace my search." The speed at which the keys were clacking had picked up again. He could picture her typing furiously on the keyboard at her desk.
"They're trying to find you?" He asked, trying to figure out what was happening. Did she just trip some governmental alarm set up to track people who were searching for unexplained things? Did that mean that this had happened before?
"Yes, but not for long, buddy. I'm just going block your attempt here. Oh, I see; you're good, trying to go around me there, but yes, yes; stopped!" She sounded triumphant. "Sir, I don't think someone wants me looking into that."
"Obviously, somebody knows something and is trying to keep it secret. Can you find them?"
"Me? Find them? Sir, I know that you did just find yourself in a scary situation, but if there is anything to find out at all I will find it, even if it takes me until you are good and dead." There was a pause as she reconsidered what she'd just said. Hotch almost didn't realize what she'd said."Sir?" He could imagine what she was thinking. But despite the situation, he could see the humour in it.
"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that." He replied, relieved to hear his voice sounding almost normal. He'd just focus on the situation and save his breakdown for later. "I'll be in shortly."
"And I will have something by then to tell you." He hung up his phone and let it fall into his lap.
As more light entered the apartment, he could begun to see the mess that was around him. He got to his feet, slipping slightly in the blood that had yet to dry. He undressed, dropping his clothes into a pile to minimize the amount of blood he'd spread throughout the apartment.
Hotch pushed back the memories brought on by the blood and headed for the shower. The hot water felt good on his bruised body. He hadn't noticed it before, but his torso was tender, but not like he'd gotten beat up, it was tender like healed skin was. It felt new. He stopped thinking about it before he freaked himself out too much and continued on with his shower.
He wiped the water off the mirror and studied himself. He looked normal enough, maybe a little bit younger then last time he'd looked at himself, but that could've just been stress from the heavy case-load he'd been under.
He took a deep breath and checked himself for needle marks, pin-pricks, or anything that could explain a hallucination. Maybe someone wanted him to think George Foyet had killed him. It could be an attempt to discredit his mental status. Maybe he was too close to finding the Reaper and thus Foyet had done something to make him back off.
All these thoughts and more were running through his mind as he concluded his examination. There were no obvious signs that his mental status had been altered. It was starting to look more and more like the word he'd used to describe this phenomenon to Garcia could actually be the truth; spontaneous resurrection. Those wounds he remember receiving should have been fatal, especially without medical attention.
A blood test would've put his mind more at rest regarding drugs and/or other things, but the problem there was trying to find someone that would do one without asking any questions or submitting any paperwork to the FBI. He sighed and turned away from the mirror, walking into the bedroom. He pulled out fresh clothing, wondering what to do with the crime scene in the living room.
He finally decided to leave it alone. His gun and keys were still where he'd tossed them the night before. He picked up the service weapon from the kitchen table and his keys from the couch, avoiding the pool of blood.
Maybe it was about time to get an alarm system, just in case any more nightmares came calling. He was about to step outside the door when his phone rang again. It was Garcia.
"Sir! I'm glad I caught you. Don't answer your phone unless it's me, okay? And you actually need to get out of your apartment and go and hide somewhere. Preferably somewhere where no one can find you."
"Garcia, what is going on? I was just about to come in work." Hotch told her.
"No! Oh, no, no. You can't!" She sounded appalled that he would even suggest such a thing. "Look if you're right and something happened to you, then coming into work would be the worst thing you could do. George Foyet just delivered a package to the BAU and inside were crime scene photos, of you, and the knife that he said he used to stab you with. Everyone here thinks he killed you and they're on their way to the house now."
Hotch looked up as his main phone line rang. At the same time, his cell phone buzzed letting him know about an incoming call.
"Look, I don't know what to believe here." Garcia said. "But I do know that if the police find you there in a crime scene and combined with the things that you can't explain, I can't take the chance that there are going to put you in a deep and dark hole until they figure out what is going on, so please for the love of god just listen to me and get out of there!"
Hotch could hear sirens getting closer. He realized that Garcia had a point. He didn't like lying to his team, but things were a little too complicated to explain right at this moment. He wasn't even completely sure what was going on himself. "Okay, Garcia. I'll call when I'm somewhere safe."
He ended the call and then headed towards the back stairwell, knowing that the police would take the front entrance as it was an emergency.
A/N: You can find the link to the original first chapter here: s/10997208/1/You-Only-Live-Twice As usual, like and review!