A/N well hello again and why yes, this is me actually updating in a timely fashion. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter (Casie01, justine, snuggleUP, Lktwh13, reidfan1971, Leslet, rmpcmfan, Guest, Jareau37, Motherofmytwo and Cupcake) I know it's tedious waiting for an update but this is your reward.

A quick explanation/glossary of sorts. As you know, a Red fight is a non-lethal fight between Ghosts. In a Red fight, the Ghosts have lines marking out approximate pathways of major blood vessels painted on their skin and clothing- it is illegal for either Ghost to make a cut/slash/stab across any of these lines during a fight. Doing so is known as 'hitting red' and results in the immediate execution of both Ghosts- the perpetrating Ghost as a punishment, the injured Ghost because 9/10 times a ruptured artery/vein will be fatal anyway due to inadequate medical facilities.

So yes, enjoy the chapter :D

Mutt backed away, blocking his jabs and slashes with every step. He was out of control; there was no thought in his moves, only a desperate need to survive. The crowd was going wild. But then, somewhere within a flurry of limbs too fast for the eye to follow, something went wrong. The other Ghost froze in horror. The crowd fell deadly silent.

Then she felt something running down her leg, something warm and wet. She looked down and the world span around her. Embedded in her abdomen was a knife, his knife. Even as she watched a growing patch of deep red blood was soaking her top. Oh God, he had hit red.

The numbness in her stomach was replaced by a dull throbbing, that quickly grew to pulsing heat.

As her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed to the ground, she was vaguely aware of the crowd beginning to shout in unison. "Kill, kill, kill." Over and over again. But it wasn't her blood they were calling for, it was his.

He had broken the rules. Illegal moves were punishable by death.

A gunshot broke out through the din.

The pain was almost unbearable, washing over her in fiery waves, wiping out every coherent thought. She didn't even try to look at the body of the man who had stabbed her as it thudded to the ground next to her. She could only watch, her body beginning to shudder and twitch involuntarily as the same Watcher who had executed the other Ghost turned his gun on her, the muzzle pointed at her forehead.

She let her head roll to the side; she didn't want to watch as the Watcher put a bullet in her skull. She didn't try to keep her eyes open as they drooped shut: she didn't want to see the crowd either.

Suddenly a commanding voiced, his voice, barked across the room, "Stop."

Mutt forced her eyes open. Blurry and unfocused as her vision was, she could see someone whispering in Washington's ear. Washington was nodding. "Get her to medical. Now!" He barked.

She was falling in and out of consciousness; the awaiting blackness was a welcome relief but at the Lieutenant's words a part of her cried out. No, just let me go. In a pain-ridden haze she tried to reach the knife, to pull it out, hoping to bleed out faster. But she was too weak her and her hands were slick with blood; her fingers slipped uselessly on the handle.

"No, no, you don't want to do that." A gentle voice said. It was the same man who had been whispering to the Lieutenant. A hand pulled her hand away carefully. The strong arms that supported her torso and shoulder were different from the rough hands of the Watchers as they each grabbed a limb and carried her like a group of poachers carries a tiger out of the cage. On one of those arms she saw a hint of blue.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was a trio of bluejays, taking off into flight.

Jay awoke with a gasp, bathed in a cold sweat. The hospital gown clung to her skin. She was shivering but quickly steeled herself; only the weak require more than they are given.

"JJ? Are you okay?"

Jay jumped at Morgan's voice but schooled her reaction, trying to minimise its impact on him. She hated the look of hurt and pity that flitted across her former team mates' faces whenever they perceived how much she had changed in three years.

Morgan was still staring at her intently, waiting for her to tell him that she was okay. She nodded, even though she wasn't. She felt like she was falling, or drowning.

She brushed her fingers against the tattoo on her forearm allowing that familiar pang of regret to sound through her for a moment. It took a second for her to register that she was no longer restrained. She rubbed her thumb over the scars that encircled her wrists, scars now painfully visible to the world. She didn't mind though; those scars were old and even at the time, torn up wrists had been the least of her problems.

"I managed to convince them that you weren't trying to kill yourself." Morgan said, gesturing to the dressing covering her left forearm. He watched her as she traced the scars on her wrists. It had been difficult, convincing them, and he had promised on JJ's behalf that she wouldn't do it again. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to hold her to that promise, but for now it was simply a relief to him to see her able to move around as she wished.

Otherwise they'd just moved her from one prison to another.

Jay just stared at him. Kill herself? Why the hell would she do that? It was one thing being ready die; it was an entirely different thing to throw away the sacrifices of other Ghosts by taking her own life. Just the thought of it was abhorrent.

Morgan could see he'd struck a nerve, although he was surprised to see confusion, quickly followed by anger, ripple across her features. He had half expected a very different reaction; after everything she'd been through, he wouldn't have blamed her if she'd… well… tried…

"They're hoping Crow's going to wake up today, they've taken him off the sedation." He said with a small smile. That smile couldn't help but widen as he saw JJ's face brighten considerably. His newfound optimism was abruptly doused however as JJ tried to respond.

"mozhet ya yego uvidet'?"

As soon as she said the words, Jay knew she had messed up. Morgan couldn't understand her. She tried to switch to English. She fumbled to string the right words into a sentence- that should be easy, right? May I see him? That's all she needed to say. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force the words past her lips. Each time she tried to form a sound, a paralysing, inexplicable fear fixed her in place, preventing so much as a syllable from leaving her mouth.

Morgan shrugged his shoulders in an apologetic 'I don't know what you're trying to say' sort of way.

Jay ground her teeth in frustration. What the hell was wrong with her? It was just four damned words.

In the end, she pointed towards herself, then her eye, and then just said 'vorona', hoping that Morgan might understand.

"You want to see Crow?" He asked, masking his own frustration at her strained attempts to communicate. He needed to get Emily to teach him some Russian. Then again, shouldn't he be encouraging JJ to speak English? He had no idea.

Jay nodded cautiously, instinct dictating that she shouldn't ask for anything, shouldn't 'want' anything.

"Okay, I'll ask one of the nurses." Morgan left the room in search of a nurse.

He returned about ten minutes later with a nurse and a wheelchair, having convinced the staff that if Crow reacted to his current situation in anything like the way JJ had, it would be better for all involved to have her there when he woke up.

At first, Jay wanted to refuse the wheelchair, but she didn't want to make the nurse angry, and in all honesty, whilst she could now walk unaided to the door, she wasn't sure how far she could make it after that. So she remained obediently silent as the nurse helped her into the wheelchair.

Morgan saw that JJ was shivering as she sat down in the wheelchair. He looked away to protect her dignity as the hospital gown came open a little at the back. Making a mental note to phone Garcia and have her send some clothes up from Quantico, he grabbed a blanket from the bed and put it around JJ's shoulders. She flinched at the contact at first but after a moment or two settled down, acclimatising to the idea of someone so blatantly planted in her blind spot.

He tried not to look down at the tattoos on her neck as he wheeled her down the hall, or the spot just below the base of her skull where he knew a microchip lay hidden beneath her skin. The thought that she had a piece of metal embedded in her declaring her as some criminal low-life's 'property' sickened him to the core.

Jay's breath caught in her throat as Morgan wheeled her through the door to Crow's room. He was so pale. But she couldn't believe it: he was alive. She glanced at the machines surrounding him to confirm it. Oh God, he was alive.

"No! You don't get to give in! You can't-" Suddenly they heard a loud bang, followed by a high pitched whistle. Then Crow was thrown backwards as a bullet blasted through his chest.

"No!" Jay shrieked, "Crow!"

She shook the memory away. How was he alive? She reached out her hand to touch him, to make sure he was definitely there, that this was real, that this wasn't some cruel twisted dream.

His skin was warm beneath her fingers. Yes, this was real.

A choked sob escaped her, but this wasn't anguish or pain, it was relief and elation and happiness all bundling together into a whirlwind of emotions so alien to her that she no longer knew how to process them. So she just held Crow's hand in hers and leant her forehead against it, allowing her tears, her happy tears, to cascade down her cheeks. She was half laughing and half sobbing, she didn't really know which, didn't really care which.

She wasn't even aware of Morgan leaving her alone with Crow.

Morgan smiled his first genuine smile in weeks as he left JJ in Crow's room; that was the first time he had heard JJ laugh in over three years. Granted, she was crying at the same time, but as far as he could tell, it was a good kind of crying. And if he was being honest with himself, he was glad to see any kind of emotion from her that wasn't fear or panic. It wasn't good for anyone to keep so much emotion locked up inside.

He got his phone out and dialled Garcia.

"Hey Babygirl."

"You're sounding very cheerful today my knight."

"What are you talking about? I always sound like this." Morgan protested.

"No you don't. Not recently. But I can practically hear you grinning through the phone. So what's happening? How is JJ doing?" Garcia was talking at a million miles an hour again, the same way she did whenever she was excited about something.

Morgan looked back through the door into Crow's room. JJ was still smiling through her tears. "You know what? I think things are looking up."

"Derek you know I love you, but right now, you being cryptic is not cool. I need details!" Garcia all but squealed.

"Babygirl, JJ just laughed."

That was all he needed to say, all Garcia needed to hear. Because never in a thousand years had they thought they would ever hear that laugh again.

"Penelope can you do me a favour?"

"Of course, anything for the bearer of fabulous news." Garcia replied, beaming.

"Now I can hear you grinning through the phone." Morgan said, still grinning himself, "Can you go to JJ's storage unit and get some of her old clothes, you know, comfortable, warm things like sweats and jumpers and stuff?"

"Sure thing my captain. I'm on it like a car bonnet."

"Thanks Babygirl. Are you on a case at the moment?"

"No, Rossi and Blake are consulting on a case in Indianapolis but Reid and I are confined to quarters. My catalogue of cute kitten pictures and unlikely animal friendships has never been richer."

"Okay, well take Pretty Boy with you; he could probably use something to keep him occupied. The mysterious world of women's clothing should take care of that."

"Sir, yes, Sir. Garcia out."

Jay remained at Crow's bedside for hours, although simply being out of bed was more exhausting that she could possibly have imagined. She had fallen asleep in the wheelchair but she stoically refused to return to her room. She kept her hand fastened around his, stroking her fingertip over the ridged sigma burned into his skin.

Very gradually she began to see actual signs of life from him. Yes, his skin was warm to touch and his chest rose and fell with the ventilator, but it was his eyes fluttering beneath their lids that gave her hope. Every now and then he would twitch or an emotion from a dream would flit across his face.

Then suddenly it happened. He opened his eyes, and kept them open. Confusion and fear filled them, followed by panic as he tried to fight the ventilator.

"Crow, it's me, it's okay." She said desperately, trying to help him understand what was going on. It was no use, he couldn't even look down to see that it was her. Groaning, she painstakingly dragged herself up and out of the wheelchair so that she could stand within his eyeline.

By this point medical staff had flooded the room. One of the nurses tried to pull her away but she stayed fast, keeping an iron grip on Crow's hand. "Crow, look at me, look at me." She brought her hand up to his cheek.

In his terrified state he tried to fight her off but she blocked him easily and just stroked his cheek, waiting for him to register that it was her. "It's okay, you're safe, I'm here." She whispered. Exhaustion was beginning to overwhelm her and dizziness threatened to put her on the floor.

She stroked Crow's fingers against the sigma on her own thumb. "You need to calm down. I know it's scary but everything's going to be okay. I promise."

His eyes widened in recognition.

"That's right, it's me. We're alive." Jay smiled down at him, still stroking his cheek, "I know it's hard, but you need to let the machine breathe for you. You can't breathe on your own at the moment."

His eyes were still fearful, and the heart rate monitor betrayed his terrified pulse but he squeezed her hand and lay still, fighting to calm down.

A nurse tapped her on the shoulder. "Miss Jareau, you need to go back to your room now, you'll wear yourself out and we need to examine Mr Castan."

"I'm not going anywhere." Jay replied.

The nurse had no idea what the other woman had said but one look at the white knuckled grip Crow had on Jay's hand and the steely glint in Jay's eyes told her not to press the matter. Separating these two at this point would be disastrous. So instead she nudged the wheelchair closer to Jay. "At least sit down so you're not so tired."

Jay nodded and sat down, a voice whispering in the back of her mind that she shouldn't draw so much attention to herself, that she'd get herself into trouble. As the nurse left the room, she turned her attention back to Crow. He was already fading. His was an exhaustion she remembered all too well.

She stroked his hand. "It's okay, sleep. I'm not going anywhere."

A/N well I hope it was worth it, and apologies for the lack of dialogue with Crow and having to put him on a ventilator, it slows things down I know but I did sort of shoot him in the chest... Anyways, don't forget to let me know what you thought with a review :D