Title: An Honourable Man
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/?
Rating: M for now, but not sure where it might end up.
Summary: It was just another case, just another broken resolution, that brought them to this.
Spoilers: I've only seen up to series four episode four so anything up to there is fair game.
Author's Notes: I've never written Criminal Minds Fan fiction before I have loved the show since the first episode. I've written 'Waking the Dead' and 'West Wing' fan fiction before so this seems like a natural progression. I tend to write a few chapters then post one so it may take time to update but it also means I can take on suggestions along the way.
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An Honourable Man
Part One
Emily found herself standing by the door to his hospital room, her eyes drawn to the cluster of tubes keeping him alive and the steady beat of his heart on the monitor.
The fact that he was alive was a miracle and the result of good luck and a group of determined people who refused to give up. It had been twelve hours since they had physically dragged him out of the water, and she had yet to see him conscious. The doctors said it was normal, not unexpected, that his body needed time to heal and this was the perfect way for it to do it. Emily thought it sounded a little contrite and she had focused on the body language, trying to read sincerity or lies or condescension. Her highly honed skills had failed her and now she understood what it was like to be the family of a victim and to not know what was coming.
The doctor had finally walked away, leaving her alone in the corridor, debating what to do next. Her head told her to call the team, her heart convinced her to go to him.
"He'll be out for a while. Can I get you something?" the nurse asked as she moved effortlessly around the bed, checking his vitals and tucking the crisp white bed sheets in around him.
Emily shook her head as she crossed the room and moved the solitary visitor's chair closer to the bed. She lingered a moment to stare at him and the bare upper torso that revealed nothing of the ordeal he had suffered at the hands of the killing team.
"We'll, I'm just down the hall if you need . . ." the petite dark haired nurse offered, trailing off when she realised the young woman was no longer listening.
As she continued to watch him, Emily thought, hoped even, that he was dreaming as his eyes flickered beneath the lids. She wondered too what he would dream of - the cases that were all too integral to his life, the family he had lost to the job or the life he tried to construct away from the team. Briefly her thoughts turned to the team and the interviews she should be part of, and to Garcia, who was on the other side of the country, isolated in her fear, waiting for good news, because she needed something good to hold onto. Instead Emily was here, at the hospital, and had been since she had climbed in the ambulance and insisted on staying until they knew something.
As Emily's hand reached out to cover his she pulled it back, hesitant about her presence and her role in his life.
"You could try and talk to him. Your voice might be what he needs," a voice suggested from the door.
Emily turned to acknowledge their presence. "We don't . . . I mean . . . What should I say?" she asked nervously, her body stiffening.
"Anything."
Emily turned back to the man in the bed. "Hey, it's me." It wasn't exactly the most inspiring thing she had ever said to him, and it made her consider which me he would truly want sitting by his bedside, willing him to live.
He didn't stir.
"You know, this is getting old. You're supposed to be awake now so I can get mad at you. And don't think the longer this takes the more forgiving I'm gonna be because hell no, I'm pretty mad at you." So it was irrational, but she seemed to be verging on irrational quite a lot recently where he was concerned.
Emily had once joked to Reid about her list of things not to do again, which at the time involved staying in out of the way motels. But this, this was on it too. Well kind of. Along with not having one night stands, not sleeping with her colleagues, an important non negotiable one when you worked for the FBI, and not falling in love with a one night stand. She would have to debate the love part later but the fact she had walked away from the case to be at the hospital suggested it was more than the fact she worked with him. Anyway she had broken all three of her own rules sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning and it was destined to go wrong. The fact he was lying in a hospital bed attested to that.