So, back to our boys in distress.

Which I have no part in designing, by the way.

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Chapter 10

Hotch and Morgan had taken turns watching Reid throughout the night. Their young genius needed his sleep, and they let him…but neither of them dared to guess how close the bullet came to his chest. After removing the thoroughly blood-soaked sweater vest, Reid had fallen into a pain-free slumber, for which the other two were exceedingly grateful.

Hotch had fallen asleep after Morgan took over the last time. He snored quietly, scrunched up in a ball for the cold, pillowing his head with his arm. Morgan rested his head back against the wall, carefully keeping his eyes open. Every so often, he would hear Reid's breath hitch in his chest, even though the kid was sound asleep. He reached out to feel a pulse in his carotid artery every time anyway, and though it was slightly uneven, it was always strong enough.

It was early morning—Morgan knew because the window had begun to brighten from pitch dark to a deep cobalt blue—when he heard Reid moan. Morgan could not decide immediately if the kid was still asleep or not, but when he turned his head to the side, he could see his eyes scrunched tightly in pain. Reid gasped, and his eyes cracked open.

"Hey kid," Morgan muttered, shifting to sit more upright. "How you feeling?"

Reid tried to look up at him, but his eyes didn't seem to focus. He shivered, and film of fresh sweat coating his face. He didn't seem like he could answer coherently. He shut his eyes again and his head fell back against the wall. He moaned.

"That's okay, Reid. You're okay." Morgan placed a reassuring hand on Reid's arm.

"Mor…gan?" Reid gasped.

"Yeah, kid, I'm right here."

"It…it burns…" He sucked in the air in great gasps as though oxygen might go out of style.

"Calm down, Reid. You're going to be okay." Morgan tucked in a loose edge of Hotch's coat, trying to seal off the coolness of the air from Reid's feverish body. "I know you're in pain, but everything's going to be alright."

Slowly, Reid's breathing eased to a deep, slow, even pattern that Morgan recognized as the one with which Hotch had encouraged him eighteen-or-so hours before. With a deep stab of sorrow, Morgan realized just how much pain Reid really was still in, even hours after the fact. He chastised himself for thinking it could possibly have gotten any better.

Morgan listened to Reid for a long time. He didn't know how long it had been. All he knew was that Reid's breathing still sounded slightly labored, and it made him uneasy.

He guessed that it was half an hour later that Reid mumbled, "Morgan?"

"Yeah, pretty boy?"

"Do you…do you think I'll ever see the rest of the team again?"

Morgan leaned forward to look at him directly in the eyes. "Of course you will, Reid. Why wouldn't you?"

Reid closed his eyes, and his head fell back. "Part of me wonders if I'm gonna die here."

Morgan's heart went out for the kid. He searched for the right words before he stuttered, for lack of something better to say, "Do the math, kid. The statistics. What are the chances that a wound like yours, however much it might hurt right now, is fatal?"

"With or without medical attention?"

Morgan didn't say anything. He knew what Reid was getting at, and he had to admit that he might be right. He didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. He knew he's say the wrong thing.

"It's just…" Reid started, and he thought for a moment. "It's just that I can't help but to think about all of their little quirks in detail, now of all times."

"What do you mean?"

"I know we all promised not to profile each other, but now I can't help it. I never wondered why, uh, Garcia, for instance, is so upbeat all the time. It never really occurred to me that it might just be because she doesn't have anything else happy to hold on to."

Morgan didn't say anything. He didn't quite understand why Reid was saying these things, but he understood well enough that he needed, most of all this minute, to get it out. Besides, he understood exactly what he was talking about.

"And Emily. I never really thought about why she doesn't react to some of the things she sees in this job, but it makes sense now that it's because she wanted so badly to prove herself when she first started here by being the perfect agents that it's a habit. It never helped that her mother was always too focused on the job to talk to, and she was always surrounded by kids that didn't speak her language. She was practically forced to be the suffer-in-silence type of person."

"Reid, you are going to see them again," Morgan repeated. "You don't have to worry."

Reid smiled a little. "I hope you're right."

Morgan looked over at Hotch and was shocked to see that his eyes were open, staring blankly at the wall opposite them. He had heard every word.

"Reid," Hotch said, and Reid started. "How do you feel? Honestly?"

Reid shrugged with his good shoulder. "It hurts," he said quietly, "but maybe not so much now." He closed his eyes. "My head hurts. My throat hurts. I'm freezing." He looked like he would fall asleep again.

Hotch leaned toward him and put a hand on Reid's face. Reid sighed at Hotch's cool hands, and Hotch sighed after a moment too. He looked solemnly in Morgan's direction until he caught his eye, and Morgan took the hint, sliding closer to Hotch and leaning his head in.

"Morgan, he has a high fever," Hotch barely whispered, so that Reid couldn't hear. "He was shot almost a day ago, and he needs medical attention. Now."

"Hotch, we aren't in a hospital," Morgan argued in a voice as equally low as Hotch's. "We are risking serious infection as it is."

They both turned to look at Reid as they heard his breathing hitch in his chest, a restrained gasp of pain as he reached up to explore the blood-stained shirt that was tied tightly around his shoulder. Hotch looked meaningfully back at Morgan.

"Well, do you have a plan?" Morgan pressed.

"We both know that this was an accident," Hotch said. "This guy still doesn't want to kill a federal agent. My guess is that he will still provide us with medical supplies to help Reid ourselves if we asked him for them."

"And what? Remove a bullet from Reid's shoulder down here?"

"I'm pretty sure all three of us know that bullet is going to kill him if it doesn't come out, and quick."

Morgan gaped at Hotch, then looked over at Reid. Reid was breathing heavily again, and even though he was trying to take the deep breaths Hotch had showed him the day before to ease the pain, he was already having difficulties.

He nodded. "Fine, Hotch, go ahead and operate on him if you have to." He rubbed his jaw, feeling the scratch of his unshaven whiskers. "But he'd better still be alive whenever we get him out of here."

Hotch nodded and stood up, and Morgan scooted over to sit beside Reid again, trying to comfort him. Hotch watched them over his shoulder for a few seconds before he went to the door and raised a fist. He sighed and banged on the door. "Hey! Hey, come down here, we want to talk!"

"What's he doing?" He heard Reid mumble, and Morgan answered him, "Getting you some medical attention."

The stairs creaked once, and Hotch could hear the footsteps approaching. The little rectangular hatch in the door opened , and he could see their captor beyond it. He wanted so badly to reach through the hole and strangle the man, but he cared even more about helping Reid, and strangling the only man that could provide them with what they needed would not have been helpful.

"What do you want?" the man snapped.

Hotch swallowed and stepped back, allowing the man to see Reid, propped against the wall, a bloodstain spreading down the left side of Reid's white shirt. As though on cue, Reid groaned softly, but loud enough that the man heard.

Hotch turned back to the man. "He isn't going to survive without medical attention," he said.

"Too bad, because none of you are leaving until I see a suspect arrested on the news upstairs."

"That's…that's not what I want."

The man's eyes narrowed. "Well, then, what do you want?"

Hotch swallowed again. "I have training in some emergency field first aid, and I could care for him until we can leave and get proper help," he said, "but I'll need some supplies."

There was a long silence. "What is it that you'll need?"

Hotch let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "We need, uh—a large bottle of medicinal alcohol, a lighter, as many clean, dry cloths as you can get, lots of butterfly closures, and fresh water." He shifted slightly from one foot to the other. "We will also need surgical tweezers, if you can get them, and a small, sharp blade."

""No," the man said immediately. "Do you think I'm stupid? Alcohol, rags, lighter, and a knife? Do you know what that spells for me?"

Hotch shrugged. "Potentially. But I also know what the jury will spell out for you if he dies." He jerked his head over his shoulder toward Reid, who was gasping audibly in building pain.

Hotch watched him for a moment. The fact that he had been reduced to semi-consciousness with no physical alterations so quickly worried him. He had been fully lucid only a few minutes ago.

Hotch turned back to look at the man through the iron hatch. "Please," he said, lowering his voice again. "We just want to save him."

"Hotch, gut some ice!"

Hotch spun around to see Morgan with a hand on Reid's sweaty face. Reid's head had slumped forward, and he was shaking so violently, he thought for a brief moment that he might have been having a heat seizure. He immediately stepped across the cell and dropped down next to Reid. He could feel his fever before he touched him.

"Do you have ice upstairs?" Hotch looked back up at the man.

The man nodded.

"Good. Bring down as much as you can, as fast as you can!" Hotch pulled his coat off Reid to cool him before he realized the man hadn't moved. "What are you waiting for, Christmas?"

The man closed the hatch again, and Hotch heard his feet thundering up the stairs and on the floor directly above them. He and Morgan moved him once again to a lying position on the ground as the man rushed into the cell with yet another five-gallon bucket filled halfway with ice from the ice maker. The man dropped a box of gallon-sized Ziploc bags next to Hotch, and Hotch immediately started filling the bags with ice as the man rushed out again.

"Morgan, put that under his neck," he said, and he all but threw the bag of ice at Morgan and started filling a second. He wiped his brow as sweat accumulated there and started to run down his brow. He looked up and saw that the man was watching them closely from the hatch in the door.

"This is real," he said. "This is happening. You just about killed an agent of the FBI. Will you help us or not?"

The man nodded stiffly, watching as Morgan yanked up Reid's shirt and slapped another ice pack on his abdomen. "I'll see what I can do," he said, and the hatch closed.

Hotch held the ice on top of Reid's head as Morgan pulled Reid's wrists up to rest on top of the ice on his belly. They looked at each other without anything to say as Reid continued to shiver violently.

"Hold on, Spencer. Hold on."

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