I had so many great reviews, and was so encouraged by them. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, it meant a great deal to me. I had actually been very worried about how that chapter would come across.

Light and Waking.

Her eyes began to adjust to the light. Slowly and carefully she opened them, blinking erratically, giving her night-adjusted eyes a chance to dilate and prepare for the light assault that would follow, unless she was prepared.

She suspected at some point she had fallen asleep against Hotch. His body was still pressed up against hers, except instead of being vertical, both of them lying on their sides, she seemed to have rolled over. Her head was resting on his chest, and his arm was wrapped around her back. The warmth from another human being, whether real or imagined, was refreshing and satisfying and comforting. The fact that it was a human with whom she was friends with made it even more exhilarating. It wasn't helpful to huddle in a cool room with a human warmth emanator with whom you had no previous acquaintance. She knew, she had done it before once. Many years ago, to survive.

Hotch felt her wake up. She was resting on him, closer than she had ever been to him before. Her head on his chest, he could feel her every breath through his shirt, her hair tickling his chin. She was still shivering but she seemed not to notice it. He had thought, while she was asleep, through all of the things he wanted to ask her about, but the first one was why she wasn't talking.

"Em, hey. Can you talk?"

She was blinking as she replied, without words. Pushing herself off him slowly answering with a short shake of her head.

"Why?"

She looked up at him, eyes still sleepy, rolling onto her back, she mimed saying something, and then cringed and held her hands to ear. Making a show of great pain.

"Can you try it? Maybe now that we're together it will be different. Even if it's not we still need to know." Hotch wanted to her to talk to him. It would add more stress and confusion to their situation if now that they were together they couldn't converse. He hoped The Observer wasn't that devious. He saw her eyes flick to his ear, the one damaged by the explosion all those months before. He hadn't realized she was so adept at tracking his progress. After the initial problems, he had become adroit in avoiding areas and events that would cause his ears any pain. Had he really thought a group full of profilers would miss his intentional avoidance of high noise areas?

He sighed, "We need to know whether we can talk or not…I can live through a little pain."

She seemed highly unsure.

Emily didn't like to intentionally set out on endeavors that would hurt people. Especially people whom she marked as friends. But this was Hotch and he was assuring her that any pain in this instance would be worth it.

She reached out her hands, covering his ears. At least if the noise returned, his sound-sensitive ear would be partially protected by her hands.

Hotch looked at her intently. He trusted her, she realized. For some strange and odd reason, that surprised her. Trusting her on the job was one thing, but trusting her with his hearing, with something that he so obviously struggled with was…intimate. She wondered what else she would be learning about him during…all of this, whatever this was.

She took a breath and said his name.

"Hotch." His name came out of her mouth somewhere between a statement and a question.

Her hands were clammy, and still shivering. It made for a weird sensation on his ears and the sides of his head. Her eyes widened in surprise when nothing happened. She licked her lips, it would have seductive if not for that fact that she looked dehydrated.

"Hotch?" This time it really was a question.

"Yes, Emily?"

"I can talk." She rasped, days of disuse catching up to her.

"Yes, you can." He tried not to let the humor seep into his voice. He realized he must have failed with she suddenly burst out laughing. He held onto her while she giggled, the laughter swapping her worrisome shivering with amused quaking. She laughed loudly for a time, and when he began to worry that she was becoming hysterical she slowed down. She was breathing heavily. Her chest rising and falling quickly as she attempted to fill her lungs with enough oxygen to overcome the effects of her laughing spell.

Hotch was spellbound by the look in her eyes as she laughed, although she was no longer laughing, her eyes still held the humor and the brightness of her joy and her life. Is this what Morgan saw every time he made her laugh, is that why he strove so often to do it? He wished he knew how to make her laugh like that.

Emily's breathing finally settled, she blinked rapidly as she searched the room. She must have realized one of her hands was still on Hotch's face, still covering his ear to protect him. She pulled it away quickly, inadvertently brushing against the scorch mark on his jaw. He hissed with the unexpected contact.

"Sorry." The apology dropped from her lips.

"It's okay." He attempted to sit up, and when she moved to help him her hand landed on another part of his body afflicted by the cattle prod.

She frowned at Hotch.

He was moving gingerly, she could see a couple of bruise marks on the places his shirt didn't cover, and that nasty looking burn on his face troubled her.

He wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Hotch…" she dipped her head so that his downcast eyes were looking at her eyes.

He stared at her. They stayed like that for a while. Neither speaking, nor moving. She just wanted to make sure he was okay, couldn't he understand that?

He wanted to be the strong one, couldn't she understand that? Didn't she realize he needed to be the strong one? He needed her to rely on him, to need him to be the strong one.

While Hotch continued to stare at her, she made her decision. She made short work of unbuttoning his shirt. At some point during the past days, or week, or however long they had been in here, he had discarded his tie. It lay in a corner of the room. It's dark material in sharp contrast with the blank beigeness of the room. Emily tried not to notice that she was undressing her boss, her superior, her…Hotch.

She was undressing Hotch!

She mentally smacked herself in the head, she was not undressing him, she was making sure he was all right, that the man who took them had not harmed him. It was purely about taking care of him, in a medicinal sense, in a care-taking manner. She was not doing this to check him out, or in any other sense, it was definitely only about making sure he was physically okay.

She cringed when she realized that her brain was taking inventory of what his body looked like, and not taking note of his wounds and bruises. Her brain was noticing his muscle definition and the exact breadth of his shoulders.

She shook her head to dislodge those thoughts and the feelings evoked by them.

"This isn't good." She said aloud. Half speaking about his wounds, and half about her own thoughts.

Her voice brought him back out of his daze. He had been reveling in her thorough examination. He knew she was only looking at him with a critical eye to assess the damage. But it felt like much more. It felt like she was looking at him hungrily, assessing his breeding potential, or whatever it is that a single woman looked at a single man like, when they were assessing what they wanted to do with them. It had been awhile since he had been in anything regarding this position. He had never gotten to chance to explore life after Hayley with Kate Joyner. He knew it was absurd, Emily hadn't ever indicated that she thought of him any more than that of a friend and co-worker, unfortunately that was mostly his own fault for the way he had treated her. They were slowly overcoming that obstacle in their friendship, but he did not want to start imagining things in their relationship that clearly had no reason to be there, no matter how much he hoped it were true.

The Observer grinned at the monitor, seeing the couple cling together as Emily realized she was allowed to talk in this room, seeing her begin to understand what the male had been through in her absence.

Everything was coming together nicely, soon it would be time to explain. But he wasn't The Exponent. That role fell to the young man sitting to his right. The Exponent had been inducted on Sunday, the day after the couple had first been separated. The day Emily had been separated from the man, the one she called Hotch.

It was The Exponent who would explain and interpret what this had all been done for. The same as the last time.

The Observer had hoped that Emily would recognize what was happening. He had contemplated whether he should bring the other component into the fray. But with Emily here, he had been confused as to the necessity of doing that.

It was rather perplexing given that he had taken on the role of The Observer, and Emily the role of the wife, the help-meet, the mate, the female half. Who would take on the role of The Decider?

Was it even necessary to have The Decider anymore? He could operate in that capacity too, this time.

He owed her that much, at least.

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Am I confusing everyone even more now?

I do so love to confuse...

You what else I love?

Reviews! And if you're especially nice I may even reply with insights and previews to upcoming chapters...you never know what a good review will make me do!

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