Chapter Thirty-Five: Succouring Stalled

Thanks to my beta, Blythechild!

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She woke just once in the air.

There was a mask on her face. She tried to shift her arm to touch it and winced as the only response was a stinging pull from where IVs threaded into her hand. Her body a mass of wires and tubes and she felt panic spike as her memories reared up to cloud her mind and common sense.

She stalled the panic by letting her head loll to the side and staring through a bright gleam of sun at those seated to the back of the medical transport. Her mom, asleep with her head on her arm.

Aaron, his eyes lowered.

Oliver, in Aaron's lap. Paws dangling playfully over the edge as he gnawed on the buttons of Aaron's jacket. Emily stared, watching Aaron's fingers trace the prominent bumps of Oliver's spine, slowly. His face was… painful to look at.

She shivered, hearing the monitor measuring her heartrate beep with the shift in her pulse. Because the look on Aaron's face wasn't curiosity or guilt or regret.

It was confusion. And it was love.

Pack is pack, Emily wanted to say, but couldn't through the mask and the grogginess. You've loved him since he was born, you just never knew.

As though he heard her, Aaron's head snapped up. Dark eyes examined her.

Her heartrate skipped again.

She found her hand and reached out to him, wishing she could say with the touch what she couldn't with her broken voice. She was horrified to see how thin and gnarled her own hand looked, the nails wrecked, the skin cut and scarred. Shifting around in the seat, he wordlessly stretched out a hand. Oliver watched.

Their hands touched and held. She slept once more as they flew through the sky over the country that had tried to destroy her.

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She didn't wake again for what felt like forever. Apparently, she was conscious, at certain points. She certainly wasn't cognizant of being conscious for the frantic weeks that followed the delirious fall into the deep hole that her mate had hidden himself away in.

She slept through their arrival in Sanctuary. She would never see the extraordinary city of the shifters.

She slept through Spencer clinging to life with a tenacity that wouldn't have surprised her at all if she'd known. It took three surgeries by a doctor flown out from DC to bring him back from the brink of death. They were, apparently, optimistic of his recovery. His physical recovery. They thought that maybe they'd even be able to repair the detached retina on his right side, giving him back his full range of sight.

She slept through the negotiations and the horror that followed their condition being leaked to the public, both in Efisga and at home in the States. Elizabeth headed them. Aaron refused to leave her side for the political machinations, and that wouldn't have surprised Emily at all either if she'd known—that Aaron had put aside the greater good for the woman he'd loved, or that her mother had put aside her daughter and grandson for her job.

She slept through Ethan discovering that Quinn was alive and safe. This would've pleased her. It wouldn't have pleased her to see him cry, or to experience the mixed twist of emotions that seeing Arthur Sinclair greeting the youngest Reid brother as son would have brought.

She slept through being returned to DC.

And when she woke, it was winter and JJ was sitting by her bed. There was snow brushing the windows, Oliver was a puppy in an expensive looking parka playing with blocks on the floor, and the muted TV overhead was playing a silent advertisement for Christmas sales.

Pages rustled as JJ flicked through the book she was reading. Emily stared at her, unable to parse this stranger by her bedside. A person who looked like someone that Emily had once known but became sure she'd never see again.

Bang and Oliver's blocks tumbled down as he accidentally knocked a trolley.

"Careful, sweetie," JJ said with a glance at the pup. Oliver's tail wagged warily. "You'll wake your—oh." She'd seen Emily. "Em? Are you… are you awake this time?"

Emily blinked and found that the strange scene in front of her was tearing and blurring. There was a tube in her nose and her arms were sluggish. Everything felt heavy and wrong.

But she found her voice, lost so long ago.

"JJ," she managed, and then she began to cry. Like she couldn't with Dave or Aaron or Spencer. Confused and scared and overwhelmed, suddenly she was being held in an embrace that smelled like home.

"Spencer?" she asked. She had to know. Sick with the knowledge that he might have died while she was sleeping, that he might have—

"Doing so well, Em, so well," JJ said, using her hand to wipe tears from Emily's face. "He's been just as sleepy as you are. God, you should have… you…" Now she was blinking frantically, her mouth twisting in horror. "Oh my god, Emily… we thought you were…" She looked to Oliver, biting her lip. "…you just all looked so awful. You'd been through so much… but he's doing so well." She pointed her chin, mouth wobbling, and Emily followed her line of sight to an empty bed with the covers slightly ruffled. "He's gone for physical therapy. He won't be long though."

Emily closed her eyes, dizzy with relief. And just like that, she remembered laying in a void of nothing listening to faded voices, indistinct touches, Spencer's voice from miles away.

And then she thumped back to earth with a gasp and a sharp uptick in the monitor near her ear.

"Riley," she breathed, and JJ looked away. "My daughter. Someone has to have saved my daughter, please, someone…"

Fingers wrapped around hers before she could reach up and tug the tubes from her nose, tear the IV from her arm. The wolf under her skin writhed with anger, determined to burst out and tear across the world to find her lost pup. Despite her exhaustion, she was clearer-minded than she'd been for months and knew she had to move while she could. Get back on the road. Start hunting. The room was suddenly too small, and she looked to the door and found it closed.

The panic was instant.

JJ cried out and an alarm shrilled as Emily shifted with a cry, lurching for the door and dragging all the machinery down with her.

Mama! cried Oliver in fear, leaping out of the way of the stand attached to Emily's IV. Blocks clattered everywhere, JJ was on her feet, and the door was closed.

Let me out! Emily screamed, and the door opened. She whirled towards it.

She stopped.

He leaned heavily on a plain steel hospital-issued cane that aged him terribly, his hair cut short and only emphasising how dangerously skinny he still was. Cheekbones that slashed down his face creating hollow shadows where there should be flesh and a mouth that was starkly defined against pale skin, sunken eyes that were only an iota healthier than they had been studied her with blank worry. He was a skeletal man on the brink of recovery and he wore the scars of their journey openly.

As did she. She shifted back with a choked whine, finding herself kneeling naked on the tiles with blood dripping slowly from freshly opened surgical wounds. She'd torn a tube from her chest where it was draining a wound and the tear on her hand was stinging painfully.

But the door was open and he was here.

Nurses clustered behind him as he stepped forward once, twice, and the cane fell to the floor as he fell with it, wrapping his arms tight around her and drawing her close.

"The door is open now," he whispered into her hair, his hands almost hurting with how tight they gripped her. She was glad for the pain. "It will always be open, Emily."

"Spence," Emily mewled, like she wasn't a woman who didn't need saving, like she was a fucking puppy. "Riley. We need… Riley…"

How close they were was proving one thing. She'd been wrong. He was healthier. The heart that beat in his chest wasn't shallow, not anymore. It beat powerfully and she closed her eyes and felt like she was drowning in it, wrapping herself with the beloved tempo.

"We'll get her," he promised, and she believed him, lifting her head and seeing people moving into the room behind him with careful steps. One hovered back, watching. He smiled when she met his gaze, exhaustion and worry warring with relief. Aaron. Aaron was here. Spencer was still talking: "But we need to be strong. We can't be sick or weak, Em—sick wolves can't hunt."

He was right. They needed to be strong for their pups. That hadn't changed. She nodded and pressed closer, revelling in the feel of her human body responding to her demands.

They'd heal and then they'd go back. She could see it in his eyes.

They weren't done yet.

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Strangely, after fighting so hard to get home to them, Emily found that she had very little to say to the people around her. How could she use mere words to convey the magnitude of what she'd been through to JJ? How could Aaron, prim and proper Aaron, possibly understand why she felt uneasy on the high hospital bed or why both her and Spencer insisted upon having the windows and doors open at all times, despite the frigid winter air? How could Dave know why they refused to sleep at the same time, ensuring that at least one of them was always on guard over Oliver?

How could any of them understand that they might not be in Efisga anymore, but Efisga was absolutely still in them?

They were fed food that tasted processed and strange and medicated heavily to stop the nightmares and the freak-outs. They were all treated for malnutrition and parasites. None of them slept easily, all unable to adjust to the noise of the city and hospital around them.

They weren't released, but they knew the world outside was aware of them. So they closed ranks. Emily and Spencer around their pup, and they were human but only just. As the weeks ground on and they put on weight and began to move around on their own, no one celebrated their recovery. Because they were healthier, but they were silent.

Emily didn't mean to be. Not at first. She hugged JJ and hugged Henry and told them how happy she was to see them and how she'd never given up on them. Then she did the same to Dave. Then she did the same to her mother.

Then she did the same to Aaron and to Jack, with the same blank smile.

And again, for friends she hadn't spoken to in years. And again, for Morgan. And Blake. And Gideon. And she found that she was spending more and more time reassuring people that she'd never given up on them, that she was desperately trying to cling to a facsimile of who she'd used to be.

Her fears had been accurate. She didn't belong with them anymore. She retreated to where Spencer was curled on the hospital room couch with Oliver in his lap, and huddled by his side. They refused any more visitors.

"Pack is pack," she mumbled into Spencer's shoulder, feeling him shivering with barely repressed anxiousness. A cart clattered outside and they both jolted, turning to stare warily at the door.

He nodded jerkily. "I lived for them," he said suddenly, looking at her with his one uncovered eye wide. "The pups. I lived for them. And for you. It hurt. I had to kill a wolf who attacked me and then I hid, so I'd survive. And I wanted to die. But I didn't…"

"Spence…" she said, wishing he'd stop and knowing he couldn't. "You don't need to explain yourself to me. I understand…"

She understood alright. They were aliens in an alien world. She hated Efisga but she craved the quiet and the simplicity and the peace.

His hand snapped up and caught hers, clinging painfully with his short nails digging into her skin. "No," he urged her, "you need to listen, Emily. I lived for you and for them and I did that. I did that, no one else. I was strong then, but…" And he shuddered, his eyes darting to the door again and then up to the muted TV set where What Next? FBI Agents Returned, but what of the other victims? was scrolling across the bottom news ticker. "But I can't do this. This… what we're doing. Pretending. Sitting still. Doing nothing while Riley is with them."

Silence fell between them, except not as silent as it could have been. Oliver kicked in his sleep, whining. Whiskers twitching. He hadn't shifted again since the Med-Evac and neither Emily nor Spencer were allowed to shift to be with him properly, and they weren't allowing anyone to take him from them. Not now, not ever. He stayed between them. Safe. Guarded.

Emily looked back at the TV. Tune back at 6 to hear about the whole 4,000 mile epic journey to come home undertaken by the captured wolves. The question remains: will there be justice for their loss?

"I wish we'd never left the mountains," she said honestly.

She hadn't spoken to Aaron yet, not properly, and she didn't think she would. Spencer hadn't reached out to his family, any of them. She knew he wouldn't. They'd already grieved him once. It hung between them, what they weren't saying. Pack is pack, and their hands were entwined. She didn't repeat that she loved him. He didn't ask her to.

But they knew they were just biding time until they could go back.

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"They'll allow you to be released if you're under someone's care," Aaron said carefully, his voice overloud in the silent room. Spencer watched with shadowed eyes from the window, Oliver in his arms. His clothes—his clothes, not the hospital's—hung from a still too-thin frame. He kept tugging at the sweater awkwardly, trying to adjust to the feeling. Emily picked at a loose thread on her sweatpants and avoided eye-contact. "I've offered to open my home to you all, if you're…"

Now Emily looked at him. They'd been back almost a month. She hadn't said anything to him beyond "hello" and "can you pass the jello?"

What was he expecting?

Maybe he saw the suspicion in her eyes. "Not as a partner, Emily," Aaron said softly, and Emily saw Spencer's head snap around from his position by the window. "As pack. All of you, as pack. It's my duty to take care of you. You're… not healing here."

"We're not your pack," Spencer murmured, his voice rough. Still half-choked from the barely healed damage done to his lungs, but despite this, he was still looking a damn sight better than she was. The deep blood infections in her wounds had taken surgery after surgery to heal, and she knew she was a mass of scarring and neuroses. Psychologically, she was a hot mess. "You left the only pack you'd ever led back in Efisga."

"They chose to stay," Aaron retorted sharply. "I went to retrieve you two—my team—as my priority. Until I'm sure that you're in a state where it's safe to leave you and return to help regain those who remain, here I plan on staying." They were silent. Aaron continued, sounding weary: "We didn't just spend the years you were gone waiting for you to come back. We fought for you. We fought to change the laws, to somehow reach you legally."

"Good job," Emily snapped bitterly. He'd fought so hard, in court rooms and against juries, while she'd been fighting to fucking survive… "It must have been so terrible."

"I didn't succeed." His shoulders slumped. She flinched. Pushing him away was… hurtful. To him and her.

She missed him.

"You crossed the border illegally?" Spencer asked, his voice turning curious for the first time since they'd returned. "How did you regain your citizenship?"

"They're returning them all to those who were taken involuntarily," Aaron replied. "Ambassador Prentiss has picked up where I left off—that's why I'm here. Emily, look at me." She did so, reluctantly. His dark eyes were intent, despite his careful distance. "I'm not here because I've given up on finding your daughter or the others who were taken, not even a little. We've been given permission to lead a raid into Efisga, sanctioned by both the US Government and Efisgan officials."

Her heart slammed twice. A raid.

Riley.

"When?" Spencer, his voice sharp and almost shaking with excitement.

"As soon as the winter blizzards stop and allow us to take air transports deep into the North." His eyes were still on her. Still studying her, judging. Profiling. She'd forgotten how discerning his gaze could be. "I plan to be first on the ground. Emily, if you want to be by my side, you need to be healed. You need to be recertified for the field. That means psychologically as well. I'm not saying this to push you—I'm saying it to stop this withdrawal you're both persisting in. No one here has given up on you. Don't give up on us."

Spencer moved up until his shoulder was brushing Emily's. Oliver whined and wiggled in his grip, demanding to be let down. "Pack is pack," he whispered, barely loud enough for Emily to hear him.

"Pack is pack," repeated Aaron, lowering his head. A sign of affection and of supplication. A wolf bowing his head to one whom he would follow, if that wolf was to lead. She'd never, ever seen Aaron lower his head to anyone.

Spencer stared.

"Okay," said Emily quietly. "We'll come."

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They didn't end up staying with Aaron. They tried.

God, it hurt Emily to see them trying. But Spencer was still more wolf than man and, while Aaron seemed determined to welcome them all home, she knew Spencer was having trouble separating the logical, rational side of his brain from the wolfy side that still snarled at the sight of a strange male near his sort-of-mate and pup.

Jack had cried and clutched her like he couldn't ever bear to let go. "Please stay," he'd begged, and Emily had held to him and looked up to find Oliver staring at them like his heart was breaking, and Spencer as a wolf pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room with his hackles raised, still limping.

Aaron stood in the doorway, human, but his scent was thick with stress and his eyes tracked Spencer's every movement. The whole house stunk of strained maleness, and every time Spencer accidentally paced between Jack and Aaron, Aaron twitched and his mouth curled.

They tried.

"I'll come back," she promised Jack, and buried her face in his hair to hide her tears. "Jack, I promise."

"You'll bring Olly?" Jack asked. He swiped a sleeve across his nose, red-eyed and so much bigger than she'd known him last. So many years lost. And utterly determined, just like his dad, to keep all his family together. "Please? I can teach him to play. He'll like me soon, I bet. He just needs to get used to me."

Oliver, Emily thought, probably would. Maybe. He'd certainly liked Celeste well enough.

She wondered if Riley would like Jack, when they got her home.

She wondered if Jack was lonely yet.

"I'll drive you to Dave's," Aaron conceded, his shoulders doing that horrible slump again, and no one argued. Dave, unlike Aaron, wasn't a threat.

Spencer hid his guilt well, but Emily knew he was hurting about his inability to be calm around Aaron. And she didn't know how to tell him it was okay, that she was just as stressed about it. That she didn't know where she stood with the man anymore and that she didn't even really know the man anymore. Not this softer Aaron who walked around in sweatpants and a soft polo and smiled cautiously at her like he was worried she'd bolt. Not the Aaron who'd led wolves into Efisga to find them or ran an illegal pack or who'd spent two years trying to change society to save her.

And she was a little worried that he'd sacrificed so much, that she couldn't ever repay him. And that she was letting him down by…

Well.

In the dark of the car as they drove in silence, she let go of Spencer's hand and guiltily withdrew her arm. And then winced as Spencer looked away, his face flushing.

That night, in Dave's bed with Oliver curled up beside her, she rubbed her aching legs from the physiotherapy exercises she was forcing herself to complete—the only way she'd earn a ride on that raid was by being better than she'd ever been, despite her low stamina and fractured nerves—and she examined the empty side next to her. Spencer slept on the couch downstairs. Dave in the guest bedroom. The night ticked on. She wondered what Aaron was doing.

She was doing a lot of wondering lately, lost in a sea of not really knowing anything anymore. There were no rabbits to catch here, no predators to evade. Everything she'd valued over the past three years, gone.

After a long beat, she slipped out of the bed and let her t-shirt slip to the floor, shifting to wolf in the frigid air and padding downstairs to walk out under the moonlight. Oliver slept on. He was safe in Dave's house, she was absolutely sure, even with the window wide open to stop her from panicking about being enclosed. Safe with Dave and Spencer there. She kept telling herself this as she nudged the back door open with her nose, walking out into a frozen night.

Not snowing, but icy. The lawn was frosted white and the sky was heavily clouded. She walked out into the centre of the lawn, under a couple of trees, and hunkered down. If she narrowed her eyes and ignored her ears and nose, she could almost pretend she was ho—

She froze at what she'd almost thought.

Wanna talk?

She turned to watch Dave walk towards her, his grey fur seemingly white-tipped in the cold night. He bumped her with his nose and his hip before taking a seat next to her on the lawn, muzzle tipped upwards.

No, she said honestly. I don't really know how anymore.

That earned her a side-eye. How about I talk then? he asked. She nodded. Alright. We could talk about how balls-freezingly cold it is out here. We could talk about the fact that Spencer hasn't even been here for twenty-four hours and he's already had two nightmares. We could talk about how you're not sleeping and you're not healing and you're hiding both of those things because you think we'll stop you from going to get Riley when winter breaks.

I'm fine, she snapped, instantly angry. Damn him. Damn him!

He huffed. Or we could talk about how you're acting like Aaron is about to throw you over his shoulder and carry you off to some castle somewhere like a prize mule.

There wasn't even anything she could say to that.

I'm not… she tried, and stopped. She'd never been able to lie to him. I just don't…

Trust anyone, Dave finished for her. You didn't before you were captured, and I seriously doubt those fuckers helped with that. You don't trust us with your little mite in there—incidentally, a problem if you think you're going back to get your daughter. Because either you're working under the belief that Spencer—a wolf who, from what I can tell, is seriously not coping with the idea that his weakness lead to her recapture—is going to stay behind with Oliver, or that Aaron is going to let you take a pup on a raid.

Emily didn't say a word. Just lowered her head and blew warm air from her nose.

I've seen the room, Dave said suddenly, watching her carefully as she shuddered and opened her mouth as though to gag, an instant reflex.

Video footage, she whispered, because they hadn't seen Quinn or Ethan since their return but she knew that Quinn had supplied the footage.

Yeah. And… well, we all dream loudly.

Her head snapped up to stare at him. Spencer? she asked, uneasy. She hadn't been privy to those dreams, a sign that he was shutting her out again. Or still. Maybe his recent clinginess to her was a factor of his guilt, not any lingering feelings between them. Which meant he might… leave. And she wasn't sure she was ready for him to be gone from her life. Leaving her alone. A one-wolf pack.

Breathe, Dave coaxed her. You're panicking. Yes. Distantly. He only sometimes allows me access to his thoughts and only because, I believe, of my closeness to you. And I'm non-threatening. Shows what the little shit knows. I could kick his tawny ass. But not just him. Aaron dreams of it too. Of finding you within it. Of being unable to save you. Of watching you and Spencer in that room, dying, and never being able to reach either of you.

Me and Spencer? she asked, stunned. Why Spencer?

Yes. He didn't search so hard for you because you were almost his mate, Emily. We searched for you because you're our pack and we love you. And Spencer too—although, I admit, it wasn't until he was gone that we realized how coldly we'd treated him. And I know every one of us is waiting for a chance to atone for that, if only you'd stop pushing us away. We want to be your pack. We want to be Spencer's pack. We want to be Oliver and Riley's pack—this is your home, you know. No matter how appealing your hole in the wall back in Efisga may seem.

Less complicated for sure, she said weakly. Efisga was never this contradictory.

People are contradictory. It's what we do best, sweetie. Em? If you learned anything over the past years, it's that us wolves are shit at being alone. Stop isolating yourself in expectation of us leaving you. It's not gonna happen. We got you back and we ain't going anywhere.

She nodded, looking back to the house where Spencer and her pup slept. What is he to me, Dave? she asked, knowing there was no fucking way he could answer that. No one could. Maybe not even Spencer.

Dave shrugged. He's Reid, he said finally, nudging her towards the back door. He's the guy who walked four thousand miles with you because he trusted you completely. And he's the father of your pups and a member of our pack—does anything else really matter right now? Who says you have to figure out everything immediately upon setting foot in DC? You be you, Em, not who you think others want you to be.

My own wolf, she murmured, and he laughed and slipped through the door. She bid him goodnight, lingering by the stairs with the scent of snow on her nose and with damp paws.

"Em?" Spence leaned out the living room, his eyes sleepy-shut and his cheek creased from where he'd been lying on his arm. "You okay?"

She shifted, suddenly human and naked in front of him. He didn't even flinch. Apparently if she'd learned not to be alone, he'd learned not to be shy. How they'd changed.

"I'm fine," she said, and it was only partially a lie. Three weeks until winter's end. Three weeks until Riley. "I just…"

He watched her, wordless.

"Come to bed with me?" she asked. She wasn't begging. She wasn't propositioning. "You don't sleep well alone anymore. And…" She paused. Her mind raced. Three weeks. Three weeks wasn't long enough for her to heal to the level they wanted her at, not even close. She could pretend. She absolutely could.

He could pretend better.

"Em?"

He'd fought for them. He'd died for them. He'd carried them.

But she'd done just as much as he had. And it was okay to step aside.

"I trust you," she said, and realized it was the truest thing she'd said since coming back to DC. "And you need to sleep if you're going to go get our daughter."

He frowned, confused, and then his expression cleared. He stared at her like he'd never seen her before, as though she'd done something absolutely incredible.

"You'd trust me that much?" he murmured. "Even when I let you down? I fell, Emily. You needed me. You begged… and I fell."

She was already shaking her head as she stepped forward and took his hand, cold and bony but stronger than it had been. "No," she told him honestly. "You've never let me down. You've always been strong, and you'll bring her home to us."

"Us?" he asked cautiously, his grip tightening. "Em…"

"Pack is pack," she reiterated one final time, forcing a smile. It felt strange and human on her face. "That's all I want, Spence. It's all I can handle right now. Just… my pack around me. All of my pack. And the rest will fall into place."

He smiled, and unlike hers, his was real. Folding himself against her, his lips found hers. But it wasn't a romantic kiss. It wasn't burning or passionate or violent with want. It was soft and gentle and lasting, much like he was.

"Of all my regrets," he whispered into her mouth, and she tasted the shape of them and savoured that feeling, "you've never been one of them. I'll never regret you, and I'll never regret our children. No matter what happens."

"No matter what happens," she vowed, and led him upstairs to their son.