Chapter10

Hotch lay in the bed, the machines around him keeping unthinking vigil. Haley held his hand, eyes vacant, distant.

Garcia put her hand on her shoulder. Haley pulled away and turned on her angrily.

"Why does he do this damned job? I hate it! We need him. I don't want to share him!"

Garcia stepped away, giving Haley space. She wanted to say something to her, to alleviate her torment, but she didn't know what to say.

She felt inadequate, wanting. She could get any amount of information from a computer, but when she called on her own mind to produce a few words of empathy, she was unable.

"Why can't he just give up and come home!" Haley was hollow eyed and exhausted. "I don't want to lose him….but I can't take this any more….." She trailed off. She knew Aaron would never leave. It was his work that made him what he was.

Garcia reached out to Haley. .

"I can't stay here. I need to get home to Jack. It's bad enough he doesn't have a father around!" Haley pushed past Garcia.

Garcia didn't move. She heard the door open and close behind her as Haley left.

She had no words to say.

She wondered if she could live like that – having your most important person in the world called away from you at any time, never sure if they were going to come home.

She had no words,

so she just sat in Haley's chair, resting her hand on Aaron's.

……………………………………………………………………………………………...

At last Spencer Reid's room was clear; doctors gone, satisfied he was stable, leaving him alone with Morgan.

He had sent the JJ and Emily home. Garcia had refused to go, saying that if Morgan tried to make her go, she would make him sorry.

So she stayed. .

Reid lay flat on the bed, small, pale, vulnerable. His eyes jerked from side to side, sometimes a tear would form at the corner of his eye and course down his the side of his face and into his hair. The only sound was the ventilator breathing, the monitors' rhythmic murmur

The sight tore at Morgan. Whatever was going on in Reid's mind, Morgan couldn't help him.

He knew Reid suffered from nightmares that made him afraid to sleep

Please, he thought, let him wake up, let the nightmare stop.

He rested his head on their clasped hands

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Later, they brought Hotch into the room and let him be near Reid.

Garcia and Morgan sat together, watching.

The nurses removed the tube from Reid's mouth, and let him breathe on his own. As the tube pulled away, Reid moaned and his head lifted from the bed.

Morgan and Garcia watched anxiously as the boy held his own, sucking air unaided into his lungs.

He was becoming agitated in his nightmare and was starting to thrash about, soft sighs escaping broken lips.

Garcia tried to speak soothing words to him, nothing seemed to help. It distressed her to see his tears, the panic on his face. Sometimes his eyes would open, showing terror. Then they would close again, as if he was trying to close off part of his nightmare.

"Please wake up, Spencer," she whispered to him. "We are here. You won't be alone. Just wake up and be safe."

She stroked his hair gently.

"C'mon, Sweet Cheeks, wake up…."

………………………………………………………………………………………………

…reliving the agony again and again of his humiliation, his shame. His face pushed into the dirt, filling his mouth, unable to breath. Gasping for air, the hand on the back of his neck, holding him helpless. An arm around his waist. A hand pulling at his clothes. The realization of what was going to happen to him, and the knowledge that he couldn't stop it.

'Please don't Oh God, please, no.'

'Help me!...Hotch!'

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Hotch…"

Morgan looked up. He wasn't sure if he heard it.

"He spoke!" Garcia said, hardly able to believe it. "He's waking up!"

"Reid!" Morgan held him by the shoulders, looking straight into his face.

Spencer coughed; he was trying to speak, his cut bruised lips trying to call out.

"Reid, I'm here! It's Morgan."

Reid's head turned slightly towards the familiar voice.

"Morgan?"

Overcome with emotion that he never imagined he had in him, Derek Morgan then did something he would deny for as long as he lived.

He kissed Reid.

He turned to Garcia. "Don't ever mention that. It didn't happen!"

Garcia smiled and cried all at once.