AN: Hi, everybody! =)
So, this is the next chapter of my Declan universe. It's a couple days later than I'd intended, but school got in the way. -_-; But! Here it is! This is the really sad one, or at least I thought it was sad. I almost started crying in my history class while I was writing it. It's considerably shorter than the others, but I didn't want to drag it out too long. I like the way it flows now.
I won't take up too much of your time, guys. I need to get back to studying... Starting Monday, I have three midterms in a row. I think it's safe to say that I won't be sleeping until Wednesday night. So, I will bid you adieu and let you be the judge of this latest piece of mine.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, I wouldn't be dying in tests right now.
It was the first time in Declan's memory that uncle Morgan had used the sirens, and if he hadn't been so sick with nerves as he jumped out of the still moving SUV into the hospital parking lot, he'd probably have laughed. He heard his mom yell at him from the SUV to wait for them as she and uncle Morgan put it in park and ran after him through the hospital entry way, and for the first time ever, Declan didn't listen to her.
Everything was blurry and his heart was in his throat as he ran through the hospital entrance, muttering 'Room 173, room 173...' as he ran. He heard his mom's heels and his uncle's boots fall into step behind him but gave them no notice as he watched the doors of the rooms. He still couldn't believe what had happened, and he had the faint idea that if he stopped to think about it, he would break down.
It was supposed to be a routine case, his dad had promised. They didn't even have to leave home because it was in town, and they would be home for dinner so Declan could tell them all about his math midterm that day (Declan was dreading it, but his mom had promised him that he would do fine, and he'd never doubted her word before. He still brought his dad's lucky tie, just in case). Dad and Mom had dropped him off at school with a promise that they would be home in time for dinner that night, and Declan walked inside to fail his midterm. Somewhere between points A and B, everything had gone wrong.
The case was an armed robber who stalked bank tellers of the location they were going to hit next. Apparently, his dad had said on the drive in that morning, four tellers at the National Bank downtown had received creepy calls all hours of the night, and two had come home from work to find their doors open. (They didn't know he knew, but one of the tellers had been found dead that morning with all of his personal information taken. It paid to have an uncle who should have had stealth as his middle name; uncle Hotch had taught him the fine art of sneaking up on the world's finest.) It was supposed to be a simple case, and everything had been normal - His mom had been irritated at the DC LEOs because as always, they thought they could handle it and waited until six people had been stalked before calling in the big guns, while his dad had been mildly annoyed because he'd scheduled a golf game with uncle Hotch that afternoon and they'd more than likely have to cancel it. Declan hadn't thought anything of it, which in hindsight should have been the tip off that something was going to go wrong.
Dad and uncle Spence were interviewing a stalking victim in his home because, according to the profile, he was a potential target for the particular whacko their team was chasing after this time. Aunt JJ and uncle Hotch were at the DC police station dealing with the local law enforcement, aunt Garcia was in her lair hacking through cyberspace to find aforementioned whacko before another person had to die, and mom and uncle Morgan were conducting an analysis on a crime scene that stretched over fifty miles. (She'd sent him a text message while he was brushing up on his notes saying that she would kill for air conditioning and a coffee right about then.)
When the call came in that shots had been fired and two Federal agents had been wounded with one fatality at the address of the stalking victim dad and uncle Spencer had been interviewing, aunt JJ had gone as pale as snow and uncle Hotch had broken the mug he'd been holding. She'd gone through the motions, and when the locals had been informed, she'd called his mom and told her the news. His mom hadn't even told uncle Morgan what had happened until she'd stolen his car keys and run to the SUV, telling him to get in so they could get going.
As his mom drove to his school, aunt JJ told her via wireless headset that his dad and uncle Spencer were both last seen alive and being loaded into an ambulance to be taken to the hospital. The second the word came through, uncle Hotch had apparently gone to the hospital. (The collective opinion was that he'd gone both to make sure uncle Spencer and his dad had the proper care, and to keep himself from killing the blustering police presence they'd had with them who'd let the unsub walk in the back door with a gun tucked in his belt.) She'd breathed a sigh of relief while uncle Morgan told JJ to make sure the cops who'd let Reid and Rossi down were in an isolated room by the time he got back to the station. He wanted a word with them once he was sure his two friends would be fine. (In any other situation, Declan might have pitied them.)
All the while, Declan had sat in his math midterm sweating his way through the questions. He was pretty good with statistics, but other types of math were pretty much a foreign language to him. But some of his mom's tutoring must have paid off because he was pretty sure he could pull off a high C. He'd just finished the second portion of the exam when the secretary stepped into the room and for some reason, his stomach dropped into his shoes. His teacher walked over and got the message, a sad look forming on his face and Declan knew something was very wrong when he saw the look the teacher sent him. Declan's parents were profilers; he knew how to read a face. The teacher didn't have a chance to say anything before Declan handed him his midterm book and asked what had happened to his parents.
He walk-ran down to the headmaster's office and found his mom as pale as he'd ever seen her, yelling at the headmaster that she didn't give a damn if it was midterm season. She was taking her son with her now. He stood next to his uncle, who didn't look at him but put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
The headmaster, an apparently very stupid man, demanded that she tell him what possible reason she had for taking her son out of school in the middle of the day, and when Mom looked ready to pull her gun from pure stress, uncle Morgan stepped in. He touched his mom's shoulder, nodded to Declan then took the headmaster over to the side of the office, and even Declan could read that he was telling him that he was very close to stepping over a line that he did not want to cross.
"Mom?", Declan asked, looking at his mother. When she looked at him, there were tears in her eyes and it made his heart ache in his chest.
"Oh, honey. Get your stuff, we've gotta go.", his mom told him, and her voice was catching in her throat.
"What's going on?", Declan asked, seeing that his uncle seemed to have aged ten years since he saw him last. Right then he knew something had gone wrong, and he wasn't sure whether he was relieved that his mom was safe in front of him, or terrified that his dad wasn't there with her. "Mom, uncle Morgan, what happened? Where's Dad?"
His mom looked like she was going to cry, and gave his uncle a hopeless look His uncle sighed, then looked at Declan with an expression he'd seen his uncle wear once too often during a case to not know what it meant.
"Honey, your dad and your uncle Spence got hurt..." His mom's voice faded off at those words.
Declan felt light headed and he was pretty sure he must have swooned, if the look of worry on his mom's face was anything to go by. "How? What happened?" He told himself to breathe, that he needed to be strong. His mom needed him to be strong, but the thirteen year old kid inside him who'd grown to see David Rossi as his dad was scared down to the bone.
"They were interviewing a stalking victim and the unsub surprised them, kid. The unsub shot them." Before the words registered, he only felt vague annoyance. He loved his uncle Morgan but only his dad could call him 'kid' without it sounding like an insult. Then, the realization hit him. His dad and uncle had been shot. Declan felt himself inhale, and felt his world shift violently around him.
"Are they okay?" That couldn't be his voice, sounding so small and scared, could it? He needed to be strong, not scared.
"They got to the hospital right after the shooting. Hotch drove ahead to meet them. If anything happens, he'll let us know." For some reason, those words terrified him even more than his mom's pale face. He turned away from his uncle and looked at his mom.
"Mom, tell me they're okay.", Declan insisted, and if he'd been listening, he'd have heard the hysteria that edged his voice. His mom gave him a tear filled look, then exhaled a shaky breath. She put both hands on his shoulders and looked at him.
"He shot them from across a living room, Dec. They never saw it coming, they didn't have time to draw their weapons or..." Emily sighed. "We need to get to them now. Now get your stuff, we need to get going." Declan took off back to his locker to get his jacket, his head spinning with his mother's words. She hadn't said it, but he took it as a sign that his dad and uncle were not okay.
"Dex?", Ilaria asked, running up to his locker, her hair swept up into a bun. Declan didn't spare her a look, he just threw open his (their) locker, letting the door rattle and bang as he tugged his jacket and bag from the bottom of the locker. "Declan? What's going on? I heard you got called out of class."
If he hadn't been so damned scared, he'd have realized that Ilaria hadn't called him Declan since the second day they'd known each other. It had always been 'Dex'. As it was, his hand were shaking and his vision was spinning around him. He hadn't felt panic like this since... He couldn't remember when the last time he'd been that scared. It was before his mom, before Dave became Dad. Before the BAU became his family. He didn't like to remember that time, so he decided to go back to forgetting it. His parents needed him.
"I've gotta go, 'Ari.", Declan told her, pushing his arms through his jacket sleeves while trying to get a hold of his bag. Ilaria picked the bag up in one hand, then rested it on her shoulder while she took Declan's shaking hands in her own. She looked up at him and her face fell when she saw the fear in his eyes.
"Something happened, didn't it? Your parents?", Ilaria asked, getting a nod.
"An unsub shot my dad, 'Ari. He's in the hospital. My mom is here, I need to go.", Declan answered, pressing a kiss to her cheek then taking his backpack, shutting the locker door and running back to the headmaster's office.
The ride to the hospital was the most unbearable he'd ever sat through, and when they knew where his dad and uncle were courtesy of aunt Penny calling uncle Morgan, the teenager took off at a run. When he sprinted through the doorway to room 173, he was startled still. His uncle Hotch was sitting on the edge of uncle Spencer's bed, and Declan must have made a sound of panic when he saw the blood that was spattered on his uncle's shirt and sleeves because Hotch looked over at him.
Uncle Spencer's bed was nearest to the door, and Declan silently made his way over, dreading what he was about to see. Spencer Reid had always been pale, but right then he looked almost transparent. The bags under his eyes were a deep purple, and there were more tubes than Declan knew how to describe attached to his uncle, pushing nutrients into him while he stayed asleep so his body could heal.
"Declan.", Hotch greeted, but Declan didn't hear him. His eyes were trapped looking over his uncle's shoulders to the bed next to Spencer's. There was a man lying in that bed, and according to the charts, that man was David Rossi but Declan knew there had to have been a mistake. That wasn't his father. That man looked small and pale and vulnerable, with Ivs attached to his arm and a bandage covering his chest.
This was not the same man who'd walked into his room that morning at seven o'clock and pulled the covers off of his bed to wake him up when he'd slept through his alarm. This was not the same man he'd seen sit next to his mom at breakfast that morning, pressing a kiss into her hair while he made coffee for the both of them and told Declan to eat his porridge (They'd had a brief argument about whether or not porridge counted as a breakfast food. Declan argued that it was sludge. His mom had laughed, his dad had won, and Declan had eaten the porridge). There was no way anyone would tell Declan that this was the same man who'd cheered for him during his kick boxing tournaments, going so far as to get into a fight with the father of the guy Declan was facing when he tried to say that Declan had cheated.
Declan walked around Spencer's bed and stood at the foot of the bed this strange man was laying on. He felt angry, he felt afraid, he felt confused. Why was this guy in here with his uncle? Where was his dad? Why wasn't uncle Hotch moving heaven and hell to get the two put in the same hospital room?
He guessed it didn't matter; when his mom got there, she'd talk to the doctors and fix it. Uncle Hotch needed to be with his uncle Spence right then, he understood that. His dad would want to be with his team when he woke up so he could give them the names of the officers who'd screwed up so uncle Morgan and aunt JJ could sit down with them. He could hear his uncle calling to him, could hear the concern in his voice, but just kept staring at the man laying on the bed with his father's name on it.
He cocked his head to the side, considering the sleeping individual. He guessed that in the right light, this guy could be mistaken for his dad. They had the same hair, and the same cheek bones, but that was about it. Surely medical doctors wouldn't make a mistake that moronic, would they? He stood there, just looking, when he heard his mom and uncle Morgan enter the room. He saw his mom sweep by him and lean over the bedside of the strange man, tears gliding down her face while she carefully took his hand.
"Dave? Oh God, no, Dave. Open your eyes, Dave. Open your eyes and tell me you're going to be okay.", his mom pleaded, kissing the sleeping stranger's knuckles. At the sight of his mom's tears and the anguish on his uncle Morgan's face as he observed the two couples, Declan's mind completely shut down
"Damn it...", uncle Morgan hissed, pacing around like an angry tiger. Hotch sent him a look that, even unresponsive, Declan recognized as his, 'Cool it, we've got a job to do right now. I want to find the son of a bitch who did this and crucify him just as badly as you do, but we can't right now so you need to relax.' look, and Morgan sighed. He nodded, then muttered something about going to meet Garcia and JJ when they got to the hospital and walked out the door.
"Where are the others?", his mom asked quietly, her voice shaking.
"JJ and Garcia are on their way here. They had to tell Will what happened, and stop by to pick up Henry and Elizabeth first. JJ thought Reid might want to see them when he wakes up.", Hotch explained, his eyes never leaving Reid's sleeping form. Reid, not Spencer. Declan wondered why, whenever they were on a case, they always referred to each other as Hotch and Reid. Declan knew that outside of work, they called each other by their first names, so he wondered what the big deal was. He supposed it came down to work rules.
He considered the two. They were kind of like his parents; everyone knew they were together, just no one talked about it. They had a son together, for crying out loud. Jack had called Spencer 'Dad' since he was seven, and was his legal guardian if anything ever happened to Hotch. Even to someone who hadn't seen them at their house, making dinner and laughing, it wasn't that hard to connect the dots. He thought of his mom and dad at home and at the office; like his uncles, they were totally different people.
In the BAU, there was no trace of Em or Dave, no sign of the quick kisses in the hallway, no fond smiles that could light up a room. Sure, everyone on their team knew both would take a bullet for the other on demand, as they would for their son, but Declan had seen first hand that, once they entered the bullpen, Dave and Em took a backseat to Rossi and Prentiss. It always made him just a little sad when he stopped by to see them after school and he had to force himself not to call Dad, well, Dad because according to the Bureau, David Rossi wasn't his Dad.
He'd never said as much to his mom but, according to Declan Prentiss, the Bureau could take that opinion and do something that wasn't necessarily polite with it. David Rossi was his dad, and anyone who said otherwise could just shove off. He thought of his cousin Jack, then looked at his uncle Hotch. The SSA – and he was the SSA just then. Uncle Hotch was no where in sight. - looked like the only thing that kept him from grinding his teeth in suppressed rage or hitting something was the way uncle Spencer's hand was laying still and pale in his own. He heard his mom gasp, then looked over to find her holding the stranger's hand in her own, gently holding it. He'd expected to feel worry at the strange man who'd managed to deceive his mom and uncle, but all he felt was bone chilling fear.
He walked over and gently pulled his mom away from the stranger. His mom looked at him in confusion, then alarm when she read the distrust in his eyes. "Declan?"
"Mom, that's not dad. We need to get a doctor to find out where they put Dad." That small, pale looking man laying in that bed was not his dad, he was sure of it. His dad was strong and loud and full of life and would never make his mom cry, ever. There wasn't an unsub alive who could get the surprise on his dad, his dad was the best. Everybody he'd ever met had said so. This man was too vulnerable to be his dad, and he needed to get his mom away from this man before she got even more hurt.
If possible, more heartbreak flooded his mom's eyes, and he felt a surge of anger towards this man. "Declan, honey..." Mom wasn't supposed to be crying, and not over a man who wasn't his dad. He shook his head, shrugging off the concerned hand his mom put on his shoulder. That wasn't his dad, why was he the only one who could see that?
""Mom, come on. That's not dad, we've gotta find him.", Declan insisted, shaking his head and backing towards the door. The stranger shifted in his sleep and his mom's eyes darted to him, then back to Declan.
Aunt JJ and aunt Penny were suddenly beside her, and Henry was being picked up by uncle Hotch, looking lost at his godfather's ignorance of his arrival and calling for him while aunt Penny held onto one of Reid's hands, using the other to keep her mouth covered so she didn't cry. Aunt JJ was holding Elizabeth in her arms and the little girl was looking from her mom to her crying aunt in confusion, holding her arms open to hug his mom. Normally, a hug cured everything, as far as Elizabeth knew. When the hug didn't make the sadness on his mom's face disappear, Elizabeth frowned in confusion.
Declan just stared, seeing his aunts trying not to cry in front of the upset children while his uncles did their best to keep the obvious frustration they felt locked in. Why was everybody crying? Uncle Spencer would be okay, if he wasn't uncle Hotch would have fallen apart already, and that man wasn't his dad so they shouldn't be crying over him anyway. He watched the unconscious man, and the more he looked at him, the more sure he felt that this wasn't his dad. His dad couldn't be hurt by some faceless psychopath, that wasn't the way he wanted to go out. He'd told Declan that if he had to die, he wanted it to be doing something that would keep his family safe. No where in that plan was him getting shot by some random whack job with a hand gun.
His dad was somewhere else, probably safe back at the bullpen looking for the others to correct what Declan was sure was a huge mistake, or at the very worst, with a doctor getting a scratch taken care of. Declan smiled as he thought of how his dad would laugh when he found out that his team – the team made up of the best and brightest profilers in the world – had been convinced that some random unsub could hurt him. He knew everyone would still be concerned for his uncle Spence, but they'd also be embarrassed that they hadn't listened when Declan told them that this stranger wasn't his dad. He imagined how his dad would wink at him, and be more loud than normal in the days after this whole mess was cleared up just to emphasize that he was alive and safe. His dad would come walking in that door any-
Beside his mom, the stranger let out a groan and his eyes opened. A grimace formed on his face as Declan watched, and then his eyes focused on his mom's face.
"Dave!", his mom gasped. "Dave, it's me. Can you hear me?"
"Emily?" That voice. Declan's whole world crashed down around him a second time as his brain told him that that was his dad's voice coming from that stranger's mouth. But, that didn't make sense. His dad wasn't supposed to be here, he was supposed to be safe and healthy and not with a bullet hole in his chest. "Where's Declan? Is he alright? Is everyone safe?"
"He's fine, he's right here. We're all fine.", his mom promised him.
"Reid?", the stranger asked, trying to move around and letting out a whimper of pain. No, Declan thought to himself. No, that wasn't right. His dad would never make that kind of a sound.
"He's right here, Dave. The doctor's say he'll be doing physio for the next few weeks, but when he wakes up, he should be fine.", uncle Hotch assured him from beside Spencer's bed. The stranger with his dad's voice made a sound of amusement, everyone knew how much his uncle detested physio therapy, and then his eyes fell on Declan. Declan just stared back.
Shock was the first thing he felt, before he even felt his mom's hand land on his shoulder softly. He looked into the eyes of the man he'd have sworn in front of a Federal judge was not his father, and he got that same sick feeling in his stomach that he got whenever he found out he had been terribly wrong about something. The voice hadn't convinced him, but the eyes that looked at him from the pale, drawn looking face did. Those were the same eyes that had laughed at him when he had been forced by aunt Penny to wear the felt monstrosity that was the BAU birthday hat when he turned sixteen. (Ilaria had taken a photo of him wearing that hat when he hadn't been looking, and the picture of his dad physically forcing the hat to stay on Declan's head while his mom hugged him had been the background on her phone for weeks after the party.)
Those were the eyes that had burned with anger whenever a newscaster mentioned Declan in relation to his biological father. Those were the eyes that had rolled whenever uncle Hotch and uncle Spencer got into a disagreement in the field, were at each other's throats for the entire case but got the job done, then closed while he shook his head as they stared at each other until whatever silent argument they'd been having was resolved and Hotch gave one of his rare smiles that made everything okay again.
The eyes that were staring at him weren't the eyes of a stranger. They were the eyes of his dad. As that realization hit and the word 'Dad' spilled from his mouth, terror, sadness, and a thousand other emotions the sixteen year old couldn't put a name to filled him.
"Dad?", Declan asked, and he couldn't make himself stop crying if he wanted to. Most thought of David Rossi and had the image of a distant playboy. They'd have known how wrong they were if they saw the look on his face as he saw his son crying.
"Dec, I'm right here.", his dad promised, and Declan sobbed when he realized that this stranger who'd been beaten to hell and was laying pale in a hospital bed was, in fact, his dad. Not his father - His father had been a terrorist who could rot in a jail cell for the rest of his existence as far as Declan was concerned - but his dad. His words felt like they were choking him, and more tears fell. Sadness filled his dad's eyes and he forced himself to sit up in his hospital bed. "Declan, come here."
"Dave, no-", his mom tried to protest through her tears, keeping her hand on her son's shoulder and seeing how the color of his dad's face just got worse. For once, Declan didn't even care that she didn't want him to do something.
"Don't you 'Dave' me. You come here too, Emily.", Dave over rode, pulling his almost a wife into a hug while their son walked over. Dave's free arm, which had been covered with bandages, wound it's way around Declan. When he rested his head on his dad's shoulder and heard him murmuring that he was alive and okay to his mom, Declan knew this was his dad.
"Dad, I thought-" His voice failed him again, and there was an unpleasant tight feeling in his throat that he had a sneaking suspicion had to do with the tears which were building behind his eyes. Dave rested his head on his son's, all while his mom alternated between thanking God that his dad was alive and cursing him into the deepest reaches of hell for scaring them like that.
"I know, Dec. I thought I was too for a while. Jesus, Em, please, stop crying, you're breaking my heart, baby." His dad's voice broke again, and Declan decided to pretend that his dad wasn't crying.
"You and Reid could have been killed, Dave! I – Dec and I almost lost you. I am allowed to be upset!", his mom shot back, and if Declan hadn't been so damn upset, he'd probably have starting thinking of a way to make her feel better. He just tightened his hold around his dad, and put his free arm around his mom's waist.
"But we weren't. We're both right here, and we're going to be fine.", his dad promised them. Declan didn't even have to look to know that his dad then looked over to uncle Hotch and uncle Spence, or that his uncle would nod back after glancing at Spencer. He felt his dad settle back into his bed and Declan partially let go, rearranging himself so his mom could sit on the bed next to his dad. Declan walked to the top of the bed and kept his hand on his dad's wrist while his mom kept a hold of his dad's other hand.
"You better be.", his mom threatened. It was the first time in a long time that he'd seen that much fear in his mom's expression, but for once, Declan didn't need her to reassure him that everything would be okay; his parents were there together. How could it not be okay?
"I will be, I promise. I'm not leaving you, either of you, that easily.", his dad promised. Declan felt himself relax and listen to his aunts and uncle Morgan begin to tease his dad, just to reassure themselves that he was alive and they were all together again. His dad had promised he'd be there, and Declan knew as he lifted Henry up onto the bed so the five year old could proceed to tell his uncle Dave that he couldn't scare them like that ever again that it was true.
AN: That's it, guys! I hope you enjoyed it. This was partially based off of my own experiences when my dad was in the hospital. I distinctly remember thinking that it wasn't him laying in that hospital bed because my dad was so much stronger than that. I think I can safely say that seeing my dad in that hospital bed was one of the scariest things I've ever gone through in my entire life, so I feel for Declan in this.
My psychology is calling to me, guys, so I must go. Any comments, questions or concerns? As always, please feel free to let me know. I feel like I never really address Emily enough in these... But I can't force myself to write her character in more or it feels forced to me... I dunno.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Have a fantastic weekend!
Much love,
Oracle. (L)