AN: I'm baaaaaack! Sorry it took so long but as a gift of guilt, this is a LONG chapter. Anyway, it's one of those necessary transition from hurt to comfort, if you will, which always have the possibility of just not coming out right. So I'm really hopingthis one is okay and you guys like it and think everyone is in character and all that jazz. Okay, enough talking :)

Warning: Slight spoilers for Minimal Loss in season 4

Okay, enjoy :)

Derek Morgan's heart raced as he pulled up to the small town's hospital and nearly bolted out of the SUV. Reid and Prentiss had been missing far too long and the rest of the team had only just discovered that the two had been trapped on the side of a mountain in some unknown condition. He was vaguely aware of JJ following behind him as he ran to the front desk and immediately began to address the desk clerk.

"Spencer Reid," Morgan said, skipping all pleasantries, "where is he?"

The clerk looked slightly overwhelmed for a moment but quickly recovered and began checking her computer.

"I don't see that name but…"

Suddenly, Morgan felt a wave of frustration hit him like a ton of bricks and wanted nothing more than to scream at the lady for her incompetence. It was a small town and the hospital was certainly not that full, surely she would have at least a little more information than this.

Before he could begin talking again, JJ gave him a look then began to speak to the woman.

"Ma'am, please," JJ said calmly, "He should have been brought in within the past hour or so and he's thin with dark hair… He's one of the missing FBI agents."

Realization finally dawned over the woman's face. "That's where I've seen you before," she said somewhat excitedly to JJ. "You're the lady on the news!"

His frustration building again at the fact that the woman seemed more interested by the 'lady on the news' than his potentially dying friend, Morgan was once again about to let this woman know a thing or two but JJ beat him to it.

"Yes, I am and right now, our coworker and friend is in here somewhere and we'd very much like to have some information on him," she said, not quite as calmly this time around.

Apparently sensing that these were people she did not want to mess with, the clerk nodded and said "Just one moment."

Morgan felt his stomaching clenching dangerously tighter as each second passed while the woman typed away at her computer. He was certain he was about to explode when she finally looked up.

"Ah, I see him now," the woman said brightly. "He was just taken up to surgery. I'll try to page his ER doctor and see if he can give you some information, otherwise, you can go straight up to surgery and wait for them to come out. I would suggest waiting for the doctor down here first, though, and then go up there because he'll probably be in surgery for a while."

Morgan let out a sigh, though not necessarily one of relief. Yes, Reid was currently alive but he had no idea how bad the injuries were but the fact that they were bad enough for surgery was enough to keep him more than worried.

"Thank you," Morgan heard JJ say. "We'll be in the waiting room."

Morgan, still lost in thought and concern, suddenly felt a hand on his back that lightly led him toward the waiting room chairs. He was thankful for JJ being there because this was one of the few scenarios that made it alarmingly difficult for Morgan to maintain control. JJ, on the other hand, triumphed in comforting others even when she was affected as well.

"What do you think happened?" Morgan asked suddenly, glancing over at JJ.

She shrugged and took a deep breath. "I have no clue," she spoke softly, "Could have been anything. An animal or another car… anything."

"Or someone did it on purpose."

JJ frowned. "Who though? We solved the case and I highly doubt the unsub was anywhere near that mountain as he would therefore be pretty close to the police station. You and I both know Flanders was not risky enough for that."

Morgan sighed. She was right, it was most likely just an accident and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. He spent his life catching bad guys and bringing them to justice and when something bad happened, in his experience, it was usually due to a very sick individual. That was just normal for him. But an accident that could have, and still may be the cause of the death of one or two of his friends… that was much harder for him to understand.

"Spencer Reid?"

Morgan's head shot up and the rest of his body followed suit until he was standing face to face with a weary looking doctor. JJ now at his side, she and Morgan stared expectantly at the doctor.

"Yes," JJ said, "we are here for him."

"Are you… family?" he asked, looking from JJ to Morgan.

Anger building once more in Morgan's gut, he reached quickly for his badge and it was all he could do not to slam it in the doctor's face.

The doctor looked from the badge to Morgan and finally sighed.

"Your friend was in bad shape," the doctor began, a statement that made Morgan's stomach clench. "He had a tension pneumothorax which was caused by a broken rib tearing his lung."

Suddenly Morgan felt sick to his stomach and he listened to this doctor. He noticed JJ put her hand over her mouth through his peripheral and knew she wasn't taking the news too well either.

"A pneumothorax is the buildup of air around the lungs and a tension pneumothorax is basically when there is enough air building up that it begins to disrupt other organs, such as both lungs and/or the heart. In Dr. Reid's case, it sent him into respiratory failure and surprisingly quickly," the doctor said with a curious look. "Has he had any other problems in his lungs that you know of?"

Morgan looked at JJ and immediately thought of Reid's battle against anthrax.

"Not that I know of," JJ answered quickly.

The doctor looked skeptical but apparently decided to leave it alone. "Either way, we were able to stabilize him enough to be sent to surgery where they will attempt repair the tear as it was too large to heal on its own."

"What are his chances?" Morgan asked.

"We don't like to think in terms of percentages, Agent, but it could honestly go either way. The repairing of the tear itself is not as worrisome as keeping him stable and alive while they make the repair," he explained. "That being said, we have amazing surgeons up there that will do everything they can so I'd say he has a pretty good chance."

Just then, a nurse came up to the doctor.

"We have someone coming via chopper," she said quickly, ignoring Morgan and JJ. "It's one of the FBI agents but it doesn't sound too bad."

Morgan and JJ looked at each other then back to the doctor who realized they probably knew this incoming FBI agent as well.

"Excuse me," the doctor said and then left before they could say anything else.

"They have Prentiss?" Morgan asked quickly, turning to JJ.

"I guess so," she said, a small smile forming on her face. "That nurse said she wasn't bad, though."

Morgan nodded and suddenly felt his phone vibrating.

"Morgan," he answered, currently unsure of how to feel.

"Morgan, it's Hotch," Hotch said quickly before continuing, "Prentiss is being transported there in the helicopter and from what I understand she seems to be alright. Any news on Reid?"

Morgan sighed in relief upon hearing yet again that Prentiss was seemingly okay but it was short-lived as he knew he was about to have to break the news about Reid.

"He's alive," Morgan replied, feeling it was the best way to say it. "But it's pretty bad. A broken rib tore his lung and they have him in surgery now."

There was a short moment of silence before Hotch's voice reappeared, but this time he sounded a bit more tense. "Okay let me know if anything changes and we'll be there shortly."

Morgan hung up the phone and put it in its holder before turning to JJ.

"That is Prentiss in the helicopter and the rest are on their way," he said, filling her in. "Hotch said he heard Prentiss was doing well too."

JJ sighed and smiled for a moment, "Well that's good news."

Morgan nodded. "Yeah, let's just hope it keeps coming."

Emily had ridden in a helicopter on more than one occasion and actually found them to be very… cool. There were loud but other than that, there was something exhilarating about being so high up and able to move more freely than a place could. That being said, this was the first time she had ridden in MediVac as an injured patient and it may have been due to her head wound, but she didn't seem to care for this particular helicopter ride very much.

Despite this, the ride was extremely short and before she really knew it, she was being pulled from the copter and placed on a gurney. Then, as if they appeared from nowhere, there were nurses and a doctor around her as they wheeled her into the building.

Emily looked around and up at the passing lights on the ceiling, feeling somewhat mesmerized. She was obviously in the hospital but beyond that everything seemed so surreal and being stuck out on that mountain seemed like a century ago.

"Agent Prentiss," someone spoke, causing Emily to look around until she found who she assumed was the doctor. "Hi there, my name is Doctor Farlow. Can you tell me where you are?"

Emily wanted to roll her eyes, knowing all of these silly questions they asked but she answered it anyway. "Hospital."

"Yes," the doctor confirmed, "and can you tell me what happened to you?"

"Car crash," she replied, thinking back to the totaled SUV lying in the valley of a mountain.

"Very good," he replied, sounding as if he were talking to a child, "what's going to happen now is we're going to take you into a room where we can examine you and make sure you're alright, and after that, we'll take you to get some x-rays, okay?"

Emily nodded, ignoring the pain in her head. The truth was, her head hadn't been nearly as bad as before. She still ached all over and she knew that she wasn't thinking completely clearly, but she was certain that the life-threatening part was pretty much over for her. Reid was a different story, however.

"My colleague," Emily said suddenly, "Agent Spencer Reid… have you seen him? Is he okay?"

Emily did not miss the look on the doctor's face as he clearly was considering the answer pretty hard. Finally, he smiled and replied, "He's alive and in surgery. But let's worry about you right now."

Emily decided this was better than nothing, especially since she had expected to get no answer at all. This being said, while Reid being alive was certainly good news, the fact that he was in surgery confirmed her fears that something pretty bad had happened to him. Emily closed her eyes and willed herself not to think about it right now.

The next half-hour or so went exactly as the doctor had said. After having been poked and prodded and examined by various people, she was taken to the x-ray room where she had to painfully move her swollen ankle about. Then they took some of her head, helped clean of the dried blood and dirt, and finally placed her in a nice, private room.

"Alright, Agent Prentiss," Dr. Farlow began as he looked over his charts, "you have a choice; I can either give you the results right now or I can let your friends in and tell you all at once. It all depends on if you're ready for visitors."

With this statement, it finally struck Emily that the rest of her team would be there. Obviously they would have been alerted and therefore would be at the hospital. She suddenly felt a girlish excitement wash over her at the idea of seeing them.

"They can come in," she said with a smile. Dr. Farlow, who clearly preferred to give this information only once, gladly exited the room and returned a short time later followed by JJ, Hotch and Rossi, all of whom were beaming.

Immediately, JJ came over to Emily's bedside and softly wrapped her arms around Emily. Emily smiled as she gave into the hug and appreciated it. JJ broke away and Emily took that time to look at the others who both looked relieved as well. They gave nods that held meaning; they were glad to see her. The only ones who were still missing were Morgan, Garcia and, of course, Reid but Morgan was mostly likely waiting for news on Reid and Garcia was still in Quantico.

"I'll make this fast so you guys can talk," Dr. Farlow said, looking around the room. "Simply put, you're going to be just fine. You were quite dehydrated, but that is being taken care of through your IV, and your ankle is definitely broken but given time and physical therapy, you will no doubt make a full recovery there."

The news was great and Emily loved looking at her coworkers and seeing the relief spread.

"Other than that, plenty of bumps, bruises and lacerations, a few of which we'll be keeping an eye on for a little while and finally, the most worrying, your head injury," he said, his tone a bit more serious now. "You suffered a pretty nasty trauma to the head and I'm sure you felt the majority of its effects while you were out there. But at this given time, I do not think it will be causing any major damage but we'll be keeping an eye on it.

All in all, Agent, you were very lucky but you will definitely be quite sore for a while."

Emily decided she could live with being sore. "Thank you."

"No problem," the doctor said, "if you need anything, call."

Emily nodded and watched as he left the room and the moment he did, an awkward silence followed. Emily knew why and wasn't surprised. The team had gone nearly three straight days without seeing or hearing from Emily or Reid and now, all of the sudden, they were in the room with one of them. It was even a little weird for Emily. But the moment thankfully passed quickly.

"Glad to have you back, Prentiss," Hotch spoke first, his normally stern tone lighter now.

"Glad to be back," Emily replied, then added with a chuckle, "Believe me."

Another silence filled the room again until Emily couldn't stand it. She knew the question of what had happened was on all of their minds, but she decided to postpone the talk a little longer.

"Did you solve the case?"

"Yes we did," Rossi answered. "It was a man named Anthony Flanders. He was kidnapping the children under the delusion that they were his own. We found them all alive."

Emily felt a huge weight come off her shoulders, which surprised her. Honestly, the case had hardly been on her mind while they were out there, but the fact that something so amazing had happened even while she was stuck in a horrible situation made her feel better about the whole thing.

"Wow," she responded, "that doesn't happen too often."

Emily loved the lightness in the room at this fact because it was true, rarely did they solve a case and not lose a single person. But the happiness faded as she remembered Reid and the fact that she had no idea if he'd survive or not.

"Have you guys heard anything about Reid?" Emily asked, looking around at all of them. "I know he's in surgery but… anything else?"

The question seemed to hang in the air while they considered the answer, which made Emily more and more nervous. Finally, as expected, Hotch was the one to answer.

"The doctor told us there was a buildup of air in his chest due to his rib tearing a hole in his lung," he spoke slowly and with a hint of concern, something the Unit Chief usually tried to hide in order to remain strong for his team. "But the doctor believes he has a good chance."

Emily sighed then because her fears had been confirmed: the climb to save her life had caused Reid to increase his own injuries to a dangerous level.

"I knew this would happen," she breathed to herself, though the others heard.

"Emily, there's no way you could have known…," JJ began, but Emily shook her head.

"You don't understand," Emily replied.

"Then help us to," Rossi said quietly from his chair in the corner of the room.

Emily sighed and took a deep breath and thought back to the events of the past three days.

"I don't really remember why we crashed," she confessed, a fact that alarmed her greatly. "But I was the one driving and one minute we were on the road and Reid was going on about something we heard on the radio," she recalled and noticed a lighter tone in the room as she talked about Reid being Reid. But the tone changed once more as she continued.

"The next thing I know we're barreling down the side of a mountain… I know the car flipped at least once and… I blacked out sometime during the fall. Then when I woke up it was the early morning and Reid… he was still unconscious. I tried to wake him, but he wouldn't and I didn't want to touch him, just in case…"

She stopped as she remembered seeing him so lifeless and pale and suddenly felt herself getting sick to her stomach.

"A very good choice," Hotch said, clearly sensing Emily's pain over this thought. It was enough to get her back on track.

"Anyway, I left him just so I could go and see if there was anything nearby but there was absolutely nothing so when I went back to the car, Reid was gone. Turns out he crawled his way out then passed out again in the grass," she remembered with a smirk, finding it amazing how he had managed to do all that in the short time she'd been gone.

"See, we both knew then that he had pretty severely broken some ribs and we knew the possibility of puncturing a lung was high," Emily continued, her heart starting to race. "But… but he was able to walk and everything. We spent the night in the SUV and made a plan that, as I'm sure you guessed, involved hiking up the mountain."

Emily took a deep breath and looked at all of them and was relieved to see that no one was judging, just intently listening.

"The hike went well for a while," she continued, "we only had one bottle of water though so we could only have a sip every now and then but we were doing fine until…"

Emily closed her eyes as she considered the turning point of the whole ordeal; her own clumsiness.

"I fell."

"Fell?" JJ said after Emily did not elaborate right away. "What do you mean?"

"I slipped and fell," she explained, half embarrassed, half ashamed. "I don't know how far because I hit my head on the way down and was out for a while because the next thing I remember is waking up during the night and Reid was awake."

Emily closed her eyes again as the details kept getting more and more painful.

"He actually stayed up all night long to keep watch, can you believe it?" Emily said with a smile. "Broken ribs and a concussion and everything else but he was able to stay up all night and then, the next day, he informs me that he's going to climb the rest of the way."

This was the first time she had lucidly gone over all of this and suddenly became so angry at herself for letting this happen.

"And I knew he was going to make his condition worse," she said, now fighting tooth and nail against the urge to cry. "I let him go, though."

"Emily," JJ interrupted, "You both made a good decision given the situation."

"Only if he lives," Emily replied absent mindedly. She knew the bluntness of the statement was sharp and painful for all of them, but she couldn't help it right now.

"That's not true," Rossi said suddenly, now standing beside Emily. "When you and Reid were in that compound and Cyrus was ready to attack the FBI agent, why did you volunteer and why do you think he let you?"

Emily bit her lip as she thought back to the situation. "I… well for different reasons."

"Like what?" Hotch pitched in.

"Like…," Emily began, then answered the best she could. "Well, it was better for the sitation. I knew Reid would have a chance at getting close to Cyrus whereas I had no chance. We needed him to get close to Cyrus."

"And he did," Rossi continued. "You made a sacrifice in the hope that it would lead to saving lives and that's exactly what Reid did. Had he not gone for help, there's a good chance neither of you would have been found in time."

"That's right," Hotch chimed in, "we hadn't considered that area yet."

Silence fell over the room and Emily took their words to heart. Reid had been right after all; had they not gone to find help, they wouldn't have been found in time. And she and Reid had been in a bad situation together before and worked together to make it out alive. In that case, Reid had been forced to allow Emily to be beaten to better their chances of more people being saved and in this case, Emily had been forced to allow Reid to leave alone, knowing that he would probably become more injured. Now if only Reid would stay alive…

"Why don't you get some rest?" JJ said softly, interrupting Emily's thoughts.

Emily was extremely exhausted but she didn't want to sleep knowing that they could get very important information about Reid.

"We promise to wake you up as soon as we know anything."

Emily sighed and nodded.

"Thank you," she said, "all of you. And tell Morgan and Garcia I said hello."

They all smiled and Emily finally let herself relax some. Not everything was okay but her getting a little sleep was not going to make a difference either. She sank deeper into her pillows, letting the steady beeping of the monitors slowly take her away…

EN: Well, I don't know about you guys but I'm having Reid withdrawls so expect to see him in the next chapter, which may also be the last. Either way I hoped you guys liked this one and come back for the rest. And as always, I hope it will be sooner rather than later but life is crazy. Bye for now, though!