So I recently watched the pilot for Red Band Society (I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it – also the Catalan, or the Spanish-dubbed, original series that the new FOX show is based off of called Polseres vermelles/Pulseras rojas, if you speak either of those languages) and I thought since I've done an AU where they're doctors, it might be interesting to do one where they are all patients in the children's ward of a hospital. Somewhat reminiscent of the show(s) since that's what inspired me to write this. Now without further ado…

Patient AU

"Hi, JJ!"

"Hey, Spence." Jennifer Jareau smiled as she wheeled herself into her friend's room. She pulled to a stop at the foot of his bed and smirked at the three empty Jell-O cups sitting on his tray table.

At her look, Spencer grinned sheepishly. "I told Nurse Seaver that it was the only thing I could keep down. But mostly I just really love Jell-O," he explained. Not that he needed to. JJ remembered clearly the time she woke up after a surgery to find him sitting vigilantly at her bedside with her red Jell-O cup half eaten and poorly concealed behind his back.

JJ chuckled. "At this point, I think Ashley is just indulging you, Spence. I'll bet she sees right through your lies."

"It wasn't entirely a lie!" he defended.

"Sure," she teased, and rolled back towards the door. "Derek snuck in a pizza and we're gonna go sit with Rossi and eat it before the nurses catch us. Wanna come?"

Spencer nodded eagerly and slipped out of bed. He adjusted his blue flannel pajamas that the others always joked made him look like a nerdy middle-aged professor and moved to stand behind JJ's wheelchair.

"Hop on," she told time. He gripped the handlebars on the back of the chair and propped his feet on the crisscrossing metal beneath the seat before giving her the okay, then she pushed off down the hallway.

This was common practice for the two of them. Spencer Reid was a twelve-year-old with leukemia who weighed sixty-five pounds soaking wet and JJ claimed that since she could no longer play soccer with only one leg, she was forced to stay active in other ways. Which, among other things, led to her chauffeuring the boy around when they were both having good days, so he wouldn't get tired walking the massive halls of the hospital and she would have talkative company to distract her from the occasionally depressing thoughts of a legless fourteen-year-old with metastatic osteosarcoma. Even if she didn't understand half of the things the little genius talked about.

Sitting with Rossi was another thing many of the regulars in the Quantico Memorial Hospital Children's Ward often did. At seventeen, David Rossi was the oldest of the Ward's patients, but he'd been there longer than most, since the day a car accident put him into a coma at thirteen.

His mother was always coming by to bring him books, and a decent stack of them usually rested on the nightstand beside his bed. Some days she would stay and read aloud to him for hours from one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs found in every room, lobby, and hallway. Other days she would stop by only long enough to drop off a book or two before departing, too distraught by her son's resemblance to the father who died in the accident to stay longer. On those days, Spencer would take it upon himself to curl his skinny body into the chair by Dave's bedside and read books they all knew had memorized anyway, while the rest of them sat around with lunch or portable IV tubes and just listened.

Today, Derek Morgan, sixteen-year-old Ward-regular with cystic fibrosis, had somehow managed to persuade his older sister into sneaking in a pizza for him and his friends – a rare delicacy for all of them. They had all convinced themselves that the scent of his favorite food would also one day wake their friend from his coma. Or at least, that was the excuse they always gave the nurses whenever they inevitably got caught with the delicious contraband.

Spencer was starting to slouch a little by the time he and JJ got to Rossi's room, and he dropped gratefully onto the vinyl-covered cushion of the chair when JJ pulled up next to it. Derek was the last to arrive, coming in right behind them with the pizza box ineffectively hidden beneath a spare hospital gown tucked under his arm. He tugged playfully on JJ's purple beanie cap as he passed and then hopped up to sit cross-legged on the end of Rossi's bed, whipping the gown off the box with a flourish and prying it open.

Penelope Garcia drew her chair closer and produced a roll of paper towels stolen from the doctor's lounge, passing them around as Derek doled out pizza slices. A fifteen-year-old with a complicated heart condition, Garcia had been in and out of the ER several times in the last year and a half, often having to stay in the ward for days or weeks afterward depending on how closely her condition needed to be monitored following each treatment or surgery. But after she met Derek and the rest of her friends a few weeks in, she didn't really mind the stays as much.

The last two members of their little group sat on the edge of the empty bed to Rossi's left.

Aaron Hotchner was soon to be the second seventeen-year-old living in the Ward. Like JJ, he was afflicted by osteosarcoma, but his had begun in his right radius (he'd never been more grateful to be left-handed). They'd amputated the limb from the elbow down. Unfortunately, the doctors had soon after discovered metastases already present throughout his torso. So now he was in the Ward for the long haul, fighting further spread and hoping for his treatment to work.

Next to him sat Emily Prentiss, sixteen-year-old daughter of an ambassador who barely visited. She was a resident of the Eating Disorders Clinic, an offshoot of the Children's Ward, where they'd been treating her for anorexia for almost a year, and Emily had just been happy that at least now she could remain in one place for longer than a few months.

Their group was an amalgam of kids who probably never would have befriended or even met one another outside the sterile walls of QMH, but there in the Ward, the six of them (plus Rossi) had somehow formed a close-knit group whose friendship every staff member in the Children's Ward – from the custodians to the surgeons – recognized fondly, albeit with occasional exasperation.

Although he knew she wouldn't eat much of it, if any, Derek handed Emily a slice of the steaming pizza. She smiled in thanks and peeled off a pepperoni to nibble on, then set the rest aside.

"Did Dr. Gideon authorize this meal?" Spencer asked, delicately picking the pepperoni slices off his pizza.

Derek chuckled as he swallowed a large mouthful. "You know the answer to that, Pretty Boy."

Smiling and shrugging, Spencer replied, "Just thought I'd ask."

"Then he just has you to blame if he gets sick later," JJ teased Derek, who flung a pepperoni slice that she easily dodged before tossing one back in retaliation.

"Children, please," said Penelope, swiping the pizza box off Derek's lap before it toppled to the ground. "Preserve the pepperoni."

"Otherwise they'll really take away our privileges," joked Hotch. He used his foot to roll his portable IV pole closer to the bed and further from the horseplay as he took a small bite of his pizza. His stomach wasn't really in it today, but his doctor has told him to try to eat if and when he could, and the pizza was better than any of the mushy microwave food he would have gotten back in his room.

"This is so good," Penelope moaned. "I'm sick of heart healthy foods and hospital sludge. One slice won't kill me, right?"

"Probably not," Emily responded dryly, wiping her greasy fingers off on her baggy sweatpants. "Then again, I'm no doctor."

JJ snorted in amusement. Turning her head, she asked, "Hey, Spence, how's your unauthorized pizza?"

"Satisfying, but I'd rather have more Jell-O." Spencer set his half-eaten pizza aside and pulled a book off the stack on the table. "Can I read to Dave now?"

"Go for it," Hotch nodded. "What book is it today?"

Spencer turned the cover so the others could see it. "Murder on the Orient Express."

Derek and JJ finished off the pizza while he read. Hotch and Emily relaxed back on the extra bed and Penelope propped her feet on the edge of Rossi's as they all spitballed theories and tried to figure out who the murderer was.

Several chapters in, the door swung open and interrupted them.

"Of course this is where you all are," Nurse Greenaway sighed, resting a hand on her jutted hip. She raised an eyebrow. "You do know you have class, don't you?"

Derek grinned and smoothed back his hair, which was comically too short for such a gesture. "Why, yes I do, thank you."

Elle rolled her eyes and stepped forward to snatch the empty pizza box from him, tossing it in the trashcan by the door. "School. Education. Come on, you guys, let's go."

"You know, technically we're already doing something educational," Hotch said. Emily nodded and gestured to the book in Spencer's hands.

Elle swung an index finger towards the doorway. "Get moving," she ordered, though there was a hint of amusement in her tone that belied the sternness.

True to form, Hotch complied first, sliding off the bed and rolling his IV pole along with him, out the door and down the hallway. Emily followed grudgingly and tugged Penelope out of her chair to join her as she passed by. At another raised eyebrow from Elle, Derek hopped up and grabbed the book from Spencer, tossing it onto the nightstand.

"Come on, Pretty Boy. We'll have to finish the book later."

They trailed Nurse Greenaway out of Rossi's room as she pushed JJ's chair down the hall in the direction of the classroom.

"What's the point of wasting our time in these boring classes if we're probably just going to die young anyway?" JJ mumbled, arms crossed over her chest.

Derek nodded. "What she said."

"Learning is fun," Spencer exclaimed, practically skipping ahead of them through the classroom door.

Elle sighed and stopped JJ's wheelchair just before the entrance. She gave the two kids a stern look. "Listen, guys," she said, resting either hand on Derek and JJ's shoulders. Her features softened. "I choose to believe that all of you have a lot of life left to live. That you are going to have great futures. But the only way to ensure that is to stay in school. So make an effort. Prove to me that you guys are as smart as I think you are and strengthen your minds." She patted their shoulders and dropped her arms, stepping back. "Think of it as an optimistic investment for your future. Or don't. Either way, you still have to go to class."

The subsequent eye rolls were softened by the small smiles on Derek and JJ's faces. She held the door for them as Derek sauntered in and grabbed a seat in the back and JJ wheeled herself to an open area at Emily and Penelope's table. As the door swung closed, Nurse Greenaway couldn't help but chuckle at the sound of the instructor's sarcastic greeting.

"Nice of you to join us. Let's get back to the reading, shall we?"