A/N sorry for the delay, and i'm afraid updates aren't going to get much quicker- once my exams are done I'll pretty much be working 10hrs a day, 6 days a week so not a lot of time to write. My bad.

Again, a fairly quiet chapter but there's only so much action you can get in a recovery. As always thank you for all the reviews (rmpcmfan, AWChic, Casie01, snuggleUP, Lktwh13, Leslet, Cupcake, lexjl, Guest, pxlenno and Jareau37) your input really keeps me motivated.

For my guest reviewer, I've tried to put some more Reid in this one but I find him difficult to write so let me know what you think.


Reid tapped quietly on the door to JJ's hospital room. Morgan looked up from where he was sat next to her bed. "Hey kid." He said. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. Reid looked around the room. Garcia had definitely been in today. The flowers in the 4 vases around the room had been replaced with fresh ones and there was another soft toy perched next to the bed.

His thoughts turned to JJ. "How is she?" Reid asked. He already knew the answer. It had been almost a week since they had rescued her, if rescued was really the right word. He didn't need to read her medical chart to know what it said, he had memorised it the first time he had sat at her bedside.

Morgan sighed. "The same."

Both men looked at the woman in the hospital bed. The ventilator kept her chest rising and falling but that was really the only sign that she was alive, that and the reassuring bleep of the critical care monitor. Her eyes flickered under their lids occasionally and every once in a while her muscles would twitch. She looked very small, just lying there, hooked up to all those machines.

"How are you doing?" Reid asked carefully.

Morgan hesitated before answering. "I'm doing okay, I guess. Doc says I can get the stitches taken out in another day or so. I don't feel so good with the meds though." Morgan wasn't sleeping well. On top of the side effects from the anti-retrovirals the doctors had him on, he was plagued by nightmares. Nightmares that usually involved JJ dying in his arms. It was illogical, he knew that. JJ was safe, and she was on the road to recovery, physically at least. But that knowledge didn't stop him from waking up in cold sweat every night screaming her name.

Reid nodded. Morgan, like the rest of the team, wasn't good at talking about his feelings. Neither of them said it, but that's what JJ had been good at, listening to their problems and worries and helping them through it. Her gentle nature and ceaseless compassion had been her defining qualities. Those, and her ability to make them laugh.

He watched as Morgan rubbed his wrist without even realising he was doing it. "When are you getting it removed?" He asked.

Morgan looked at Reid, then down at his wrist in surprise. Reid was referring to the UV tattoo hidden in his skin. Morgan shrugged. "I don't know. With everything that's been going on, I haven't really given it much thought…"

"You should go get some sleep." Reid said quietly. The team was taking it in shifts, one would sit with JJ whilst the others either slept or helped at the station. There wasn't much for them to do at the station but they liked to keep busy. Just waiting would lead them down the road to insanity.

Morgan nodded; nightmares or not, he was exhausted. He clasped Reid's shoulder as he got up and left the room. Reid took his place at JJ's bedside.

Morgan was just approaching the exit of the ICU when he glanced into a room on his right. It was Crow's room. He stopped for a moment, then opened the door. The room was bare inside. They still hadn't identified the man who had saved JJ's life, likely more than once. Crow was also on a ventilator. He had made it through surgery but Morgan knew little more than that.

With no family or next of kin, no-one was there to sit by his bedside, praying that he would be okay. Morgan felt guilty about that; he should have been in to see him. But he hadn't, none of them had. There wasn't even a bunch of flowers in the room.

He sighed and left, taking his phone out of his pocket and dialling. Garcia picked up after the first ring. "Good evening, my knight. How can Queen Penelope be of service tonight?"

"Hey, Babygirl. Have you had any luck identifying JJ's friend yet?"

"I'm sorry, my sweet, I haven't. His DNA isn't in the system and he hasn't got any fingerprints for me to find a match."

Morgan dragged a hand over his scalp. "Can you expand the search for partial DNA profile matches? Maybe he's got family in the system or something. I'm going to head to the precinct and see if there's anything in his personal belongings that could help us." They had already gone over the items that had been found in the Ghost quarters and on the Ghosts themselves but it didn't sit right with Morgan that they didn't even know who this man was.

"Sure thing, my prince. I'm on it."

"Thanks Sweetness. Call me if you get any hits."


Reid settled into the chair next to JJ's bed and held her hand in his. "Hey, JJ." He murmured quietly. "I don't know if you can hear me. But umm... But I'm here. You know, some studies have determined that talking to a loved one whilst they're unconscious can help their recovery. Of course, other studies reached the conclusion that it makes no difference. I haven't found any that say it's a bad thing though."

He stopped. He didn't really know what to say. "I was so angry, when you first went missing. Angry at you, angry at Hotch, angry at Emily. I didn't understand how you could have let me cry on your shoulder every night for ten weeks and not tell me she was alive. I guess after a little while it made sense. You had to protect her, and protect us."

He sighed and took a small coin shaped object from his pocket. He turned it over in his hand. "I missed you so much. I didn't know how to cope." He turned the coin over again. It was his 18 month chip from the Beltway Clean Cops. In another two months he would earn his two year chip.

"It got so bad that I wasn't even sure I wanted to get clean, without you there to help me through it again. I did though, for you, because I knew it wasn't what you would have wanted, and for Maeve, who helped me to see that." He smiled sadly. She didn't even know who Maeve was. He remembered her telling Hotch once that losing someone was hard, but it gets better. That eventually you can think of them without it hurting. That you can think of them, and be happy.

He hadn't reached that stage yet.

"I think you would have liked her. I wish you could have met." He stopped. Maybe later he would tell her more about her, about how she made him smile, about how they met. He could only imagine JJ's reaction when he told her that the reason their relationship even started was that he had sent her MRI scans of his brain. She'd laugh and say something like "That's a pick up line Derek definitely didn't coach you in."

His eyes fell on JJ's face. The JJ he knew before would have said that. He didn't know how this JJ would react. Unbidden lines of information from her medical report filtered unwanted into his thoughts.

Evidence of internal scarring concurrent with repeated sexual assault. No evidence of recent sexual activity.

Significant scarring from numerous sources, including chemical burns, thermal burns, sharp force trauma, canine bites… The list went on.

HIV positive. Viral load 4.6 log. CD4 count 420/µL. Prescribed medication 600mg Atripla.

He shook his head, willing the thoughts away. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a small red box. "I brought you something. Anderson had it sent over from Quantico." Reid had kept it in his desk drawer ever since she had gone missing, hoping to return it to her one day. Inside the box was the necklace her sister had given her before she died.

He placed it on the small table next to the bed. "I don't care what you've done, or how you've changed. I know the JJ I knew is still in there. Just come back to us."

Beside him, JJ's eyes flickered backwards and forth beneath her eyelids. Her hand twitched in his.


Mutt sat alone with her back to the wall in the mess room, her eyes darting warily around the room. Cook, Fletch and Bantam were huddled in a group a couple of meters away but she didn't sit with them. A group of Cheaps crouched at the other end of the room, talking quietly. They shouldn't be talking in English, they could get everyone into trouble. A couple of metres away from them was another Cheap, a female. She used to sit with the group but she doesn't now.

The group was all male. Mutt knew the look that was in the female's eye. She knew what had happened to her. She flinched involuntarily as Washington flashed through her mind. She frowned and clenched her fists, closing her eyes for a moment and shushing herself, whispering to her mind to be quiet.

She tensed as Crow walked over and sat down beside her. She felt more comfortable around him than any of the other Ghosts here but that didn't mean she trusted him. She rubbed the sigma on the base of her thumb unconsciously. It was still a little sore but that would fade in another couple of days.

Both Ghosts concentrated on eating their food. It was exactly the same, day in, day out. Crow finished before her. His stomach growled loudly, wanting more. She paused. She wasn't all that hungry today. "You want this?" She murmured, motioning to the final slice of spam on her plate.

Crow shook his head. "I'm fine." His stomach growled again. Without a word, Mutt transferred the slice of spam to his plate. He hesitated for just a second before wolfing it down. "Thanks, Jay."

Mutt smiled. She liked that he called her that. She didn't feel like she really belonged to that name yet, but it made her feel a little more human. When they had finished eating, they left their plates by the door and left. But instead of heading towards quarters, Crow guided her in a different direction. She stopped and looked at him suspiciously.

"Come on, I want to show you something."

She hesitated but looked at him carefully. She had become adept at reading people over the last couple of years and she saw no deceit in his eyes. She wasn't back to full strength yet but if anything went wrong then she could just stick a knife in him and run.

She nodded and followed just behind him without a word. His walking with his back to her was almost a dare, leaving him open to attack. He was trying to show that he was no threat, that he trusted her.

When they came to a ladder that lead to the lower levels, she stopped him. "Are we allowed down there? What if the Watchers find out?" She whispered urgently.

"We'll be fine. The Watchers rarely come down here. If they do then we just hide and wait for them to leave." He had already climbed down the ladder and was waiting for her at the bottom. She took a deep breath and followed him, grimacing as the strain made her finger throb. When he placed a hand on her back to steady her, she flinched and tore a knife from its sheath, swinging around to hold it to his throat.

He raised his hands in surrender and backed away. "Sorry." He said softly. Mutt was breathing hard, fighting to keep her panic under control. After a moment she calmed down enough to jump the last couple rungs and re-sheath the knife.

"It's not your fault." She muttered, "I'm just not good with… physical contact." She looked away, ashamed.

Crow shrugged and scratched his scalp awkwardly. "It's not your fault either." He paused then continued walking, "Come on."

Eventually he led her into a small room filled with crates. The walls were all cinderblock aside from one wall which was boarded up with wood. The wood was covered in nicks and scratches. "What is this place?" Mutt asked.

"It's some place you can go and feel safe. Well, kind of safe. Only a couple of people know about it, me and Cook. But Cook's getting released soon so I don't think he'd mind me bringing you here."

"Wait. He's getting released? What do you mean?" Mutt frowned, Washington had never released any of his Ghosts. Washington was inescapable. She had learnt that the hard way.

"If you make it to four years the Lieutenant releases you, if you want." Crow bit his lip and looked away. Mutt understood why. She wasn't sure that she'd want to leave, if given the chance. It had taken a long time for Jason to talk her into trying to leave Washington. That was a mistake.

"Cook wants to leave?" She asked.

"Cook doesn't know what he wants. But I think he has a family Outside." Crow picked at the hem of his shorts. Mutt watched him closely.

"What happened to your family?"

Crow froze, guilt flitting across his face. She had seen that look before. Whenever the Watchers beat him with their whips, she saw guilt rather than fear. But it wasn't just guilt, she couldn't put a name to it, but each time a lash found its mark, he looked as though… as though he felt he deserved it.

"They died." Crow replied. He took a tattered scrap of card from within the waistband of his shorts. As Mutt looked closer, she realised it had once been a photograph.

"I'm sorry. How long has it been?" She asked softly.

"My mom died when I was ten. For my father and brother it's now been two years and eight months." Again, guilt contorted his features at he stared at the faded photograph. And now, Mutt thought she understood why. That was the same length of time that Crow had been a Ghost.


A/N another chapter (maybe two) and I'll wake JJ up. In the meantime, let me know what you want to see and I'll see what I can do, I'm always open to suggestions. Don't forget to review :)