A/n hey everyone... I'm so happy with all of the positive feedback on the last chapter in particular. Here's the next chapter and I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: The insane doctor, the clone, and the butler/assassin are mine. Hm… I just realized that might not be a good thing! Hey… some of my original characters are normal! Anyway CBS owns everything recognizable.
It's finally over, or is it?
Hotch and the two SWAT team members entered the library and Hotch wasn't surprised to see the other secret passageway. Everything else about this case had been so weird, why not secret passageways honeycombing the place?
He followed the largest of the SWAT agents down a tightly spiraling staircase. It didn't look like the butler or cleaning staff had been here in decades. The stairs were a little slippery and the fluttering light of the torches didn't help to keep them steady on their feet. Hotch had his flashlight out and was turning it on when he heard arguing voices from below them.
Hotch entered the lab in time to hear to gunshots and see Reid and a dark haired woman fall to the ground. The SWAT agents were calling for Dr. Black to put down his gun but he only laughed.
"You won't take me alive!" He shouted and then threw the contents of one beaker of chemicals at another.
Fire erupted with a small explosion. The fire caught fast and began to burn the tables with orange and
yellow flames. It made their shadows dance around the room like demons. The SWAT agents fired their weapons at the same time, but didn't hit Dr. Black. The doctor disappeared behind the flames that cut off the agents from him. They tried to follow, but the fire burned too fast. They had to get out of that lab.
"Sir… there's wounded here." One SWAT agent yelled, his gun pointed into the burning room.
Hotch turned to see three figures lying on the stone floor just a few feet from him. "Help me…" He yelled to the agents.
The body closest to him had a lot of blood around the right side of his body. He lay face up and his long brown hair obscured half his face. Hotch knelt next to the body. "Reid… Can you hear me?" He pressed two shaking fingers on his young agent's neck and felt the pulse, slow and regular.
"Reid… Wake up!"
The young man didn't move and his eyes stayed shut. There was a gaping wound in his chest, high and on the right side of his body that was bleeding profusely. Hotch pulled off his coat and tried to stop the bleeding. When he pushed down on Reid's shoulder the young man groaned and his eyelids fluttered open.
"Reid… Stay with me!" Hotch commanded loudly over the flames. They were getting closer. Reid's eyes closed again. "Don't close your eyes." Hotch screamed.
"Hotch," Morgan spoke loudly behind him. Emily was swaying on her feet and staring down at Reid. She was crying hard. "We've got to get him out of here." Morgan was saying.
"Grab his legs." Hotch ordered as he lifted the moaning young man's upper body. Morgan lifted, groaned loudly, and staggered under the weight of his friend.
"What's wrong Morgan?" Hotch called over the noise of the crackling flames.
"I'm alright! Let's get him out of here," He called back.
The two of them carried him as fast as they could up the spiral staircase. Emily followed them up the stairs and out the door. It shut behind her when she pushed the book back into place. She followed Morgan and Hotch who still carried Reid to the outside of the castle.
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Night had come to the mountains. JJ and Rossi were standing on the lawn in front of the castle with several FBI agents. There was no sign of the fire anywhere in the rest of the castle. She could hear the thunder overhead and see the lightning splitting the sky, but there was no sign of rain. Hotch and Morgan was ahead of her carrying Reid to the helicopter sitting a distance away from the castle.
"JJ…" Emily called, and the communications expert turned and strode to where her friend stood. "Have you seen Dr. Black?" She asked the blond agent.
"No… what happened down there?"
"I don't have time to explain. Reid's been shot."
"What… is he okay? Where is he?"
"Morgan and Hotch took him to the helicopter. He needs to get to the hospital." Emily said, beginning to cry again.
JJ resisted the urge to run and find out how Reid was, instead she put an arm around Emily and pulled her down the grassy hill to the helipad. "Reid is stronger than any of us. He's not checking out, not now." She stroked Emily's hair back from her face.
"Go… they're going to take off soon." The sound of the engines changed to a deeper whine, and the rotor blades began to spin faster and faster, blowing wind into their faces and making them squint.
Emily smiled weakly at her friend and took off toward the helicopter. "Hey Emily…" JJ yelled. The older agent turned to look back with an exasperated expression. "When he wakes up… tell him you love him." JJ hollered back, and then began to laugh at the look on her friend's face, before turning to go back up the hill.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How are you feeling?" Rossi was asking Morgan.
"You gotta love bullet proof vests." Morgan responded, stretching and groaning. He'd been hit square in the chest with Reid's bullet and his breast bone hurt like hell. He guessed it was better than being dead!
The emergency room was quiet. The excitement of the past hour was over, and all the team could do was to sit and wait to hear about Reid.
"Did you call Garcia?" JJ asked Morgan.
"I forgot, she's going to skin me alive." He admitted pulling his phone out of his pocket. He didn't sound too concerned at that eventuality, and it made Emily smile in spite of the situation.
A passing nurse gave him a baleful stare. "You can't use that in here." She said.
"Ok… ok… I'll leave." He growled at her. She narrowed her eyes at him and stalked off in the direction the doctors had taken Reid.
Morgan left the emergency room and Emily watched him walk away. He had someone to talk to. The nurses and doctors wouldn't tell her anything. Hotch was Reid's emergency contact, and had no luck getting any information from the doctors, except that they had to wait. That was the only thing she could do was wait, and wait.
She sat next to JJ who was writing something in a notebook. She looked at her watch and stood up. "Hotch… I'm going to take care of the press conference and then I'll be back." Hotch nodded and JJ patted Emily on the shoulder before she left the room.
Morgan came back to the waiting room several minutes later. He didn't look very happy. "Hey Morgan…" Emily said when he sat down next to her. "What's wrong?"
"I just talked to Garcia. She's pretty pissed that Reid was shot." He said glumly looking down at his phone as though it could talk sense to his tech goddess. "She thinks I should have prevented it."
"You know how close she is to Reid. She'll come around eventually and realize it wasn't your fault."
"Thanks Emily…. That makes me feel so much better."
Emily went back to the magazine she wasn't reading, and after several minutes, a big dark skinned hand covered hers and she looked up to see Morgan looking at her questioningly. "You okay Emily?"
Tears threatened at his kind tone. "I'm fine." She lied.
"No… I don't think you are."
"Morgan… Leave it alone, please!"
"I'm just saying that if you really care for my man, you need to tell him. I know," He raised his free hand to stop what she'd been about to say. "That's kind of weak coming from me, but don't follow my example. Reid deserves better than that."
Emily's mouth was beginning to tremble and a single tear made its way down her face. Morgan squeezed her hand gently. "He doesn't care about JJ that way anymore."
"How do you -"
"I know my friend. You're the one he wants, even if he can't admit it. He's been hurt a lot; you can't blame him for locking people out of his heart."
"You're a real romantic," Emily said with a sniff.
"Yeah… don't tell the un-subs." He kidded and patted her hand again.
He got up and went to go talk to Hotch and Rossi, telling them as best he could what had happened in that underground lab.
A doctor with dark brown hair and brown eyes that were tired, but kind, approached their group. She was about Emily's height and she wore green scrubs with a white coat. Emily saw the blood on the front of the scrubs and her stomach did a slow roll. Was that Reid's blood? The doctor's face looked exhausted, but not sorrowful so maybe…
"Spencer Reid…" She asked looking around.
"Yes… that's us." Hotch stepped up and Emily joined him, Rossi and Morgan in a little semi circle around the doctor.
"I'm Dr Wright. Dr. Reid is out of surgery. He was shot in the upper right quadrant of his chest. The lung was grazed but it didn't collapse. We repaired the damage, but he's lost a lot of blood."
Hotch appraised the woman critically, but it was Rossi that said. "What haven't you told us doctor?"
"He's in a coma. We nearly lost him twice on the table, but we were able to stabilize him. He's in recovery and then he'll be in ICU."
"When can we see him?" Morgan asked the question that was burning on Emily's tongue.
"He'll be in recovery for at least three hours. After that, only one of you at a time and not for very long, he may be in a coma, but he still needs his rest." She admonished them. "A nurse will come and get you when he's out of recovery."
She left the waiting room and they went back to waiting. Emily went back to staring at her magazine instead of reading it. After awhile JJ came back to the waiting room and Morgan took her aside to tell her the news.
JJ sat down on the other side of Emily, and as she had when they waited for Garcia, she took Emily's free hand.
"He's going to be okay." JJ said softly.
"How do you know?" Emily blurted out without thinking. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest it hurt.
"Because he's Reid…" JJ said. "And I want to see the look on his face when you tell him you love him." She grinned at her older friend.
"Very funny… for your information, I already told him."
"Really, what did he say?" JJ asked looking extremely excited.
"Nothing… He shot Morgan instead."
"Oh… well I'm sure that didn't have anything to do with you." JJ patted her arm reassuringly.
Emily only glared at her chuckling friend. "I'm only trying to cheer you up." JJ explained.
"Thanks, I think," Emily retorted. She put the magazine down she'd been grasping in one hand like a safety net.
"Really, I just want both of you to be happy. I never loved him the way he wanted and honestly, I'm sorry for that, because he's a great guy. Sometimes it's not meant to be between two people."
"But what if -"
"No… stop doubting and just tell him again. He loves you. Everyone sees it and if you really see him you'll know it's true." JJ said.
Emily didn't know how to answer that and when the nurse came to tell them Reid could have visitors, she went last.
He was as white as the sheets that were pulled up to his chin. His hair had lost its luster, and his deep brown eyes were shut, the long lashes lying motionless on his cheeks. There were IV lines infusing into both arms. He had a nasal cannula in his nose, but they said it was only a precaution. He was breathing on his own.
She stayed watching him for as long as the nurse would let her, but he never moved or made a sound. She couldn't speak even though the doctors said he might hear what she said. Her mouth wouldn't make the words she wanted to say before they made her leave.
Hotch ordered them all to get some sleep after Emily left Reid's room. She didn't want to leave, but Hotch's glare pushed her out the door with the rest of them. Reid wasn't going anywhere and he was only a phone call away.
JJ had got them rooms at the closest hotel. JJ and Emily were sharing one of the three available rooms. There was a dentist convention in town and few rooms to rent. Emily wished that she were alone, but apart from a pat on the shoulder, and telling her that if she wanted to talk she would listen, JJ was quiet.
They changed for bed and turned out the light. Emily tossed and turned, wondering if what JJ had said was right, maybe it was time to tell him how she felt and hope he loved her too.
