Author's Note: Direct pickup.

Injuries & Inferences

To his rising horror, Aaron could see that not only was there blood in Emily's hair, but she seemed to be unconscious too. So he quickly fumbled to check the pulse on her neck while he simultaneously starting shaking her shoulder.

"EMILY!" he yelled at her, "EMILY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?! OPEN YOUR EYES!"

But those pretty brown eyes stayed shut, and she didn't even twitch at the sound of his voice. But when he was able to focus in to feel the slow and steady thump of her blood pumping beneath his fingertips, Aaron was finally able to suck in a ragged breath of air.

Thank God! At least she's alive!

Then his head snapped up, and even while his body was still shifting back off of Emily's, he started waving at the agents and officers swarming through the bank.

"DOJ!" He hollered, scrambling to lift the lanyard off his chest with one hand as he pointed down at Emily with the other, "SHE'S BADLY HURT, AND SHE'S WITH ME!"

Not that her association with him, and by extension his association with the Justice Department, should have mattered . . . not with so many people around them screaming in pain . . . but he knew that it would. Because he was one of them. A member of law enforcement. And law enforcement followed the same rule as everyone else in the world.

They took care of their own, first.

And he'd just made Emily one of them too. Which meant that when it came to medical attention . . . he made another desperate wave as a half dozen heads turned in their direction . . . she would now be put at the head of the line.

He felt no guilt about that.

And his yelling definitely got him the attention that they needed. Though to his consternation, the specific officer that came running across the marble floor . . . a woman from the Secret Service uniformed division . . . still had her weapon out and was yelling for him to stay down. So he again yelled, "DOJ!" while waving the credentials he still had in the air. The woman ended up stopping short two feet away.

Her weapon fell down to the side.

"Aaron Hotchner," he frantically identified himself, "I'm an Assistant U.S. Attorney!" Then he gestured first to Emily, and then to the door, "she's unconscious and her head's bleeding, badly! I think she might have been shot! We need a paramedic, NOW!"

And that was enough to get the wheels moving.

With a "right, right," the officer turned and started frantically calling into the radio on her wrist.

Once Aaron was sure that medical attention was on its way . . . not only had the woman radioed in the call that they had somebody from DOJ down with a possible head shot (a small, only partial lie that again caused him to feel no guilt), but she'd also run over to the blasted out doorway and started yelling for someone to get an ETA on the ambulances . . . his full attention shifted back down to Emily.

His eyes were tracking over the blood in her hair, looking for the specific wound to see if there was anything that he could do. But then he realized that they had a much bigger problem . . . bigger even than a possible bullet to the brain. Because she was bleeding so badly that there was already a small pool of blood spreading out just beneath her head. His gut twisted at the crimson puddle.

Oh God . . . his teeth ground together . . . that was bad. That was so very, VERY bad!

"Emily," he began to frantically plead, while simultaneously gliding the fingers of his free hand along her hairline, trying to feel for the wound that he couldn't see, "please wake up now . . ." he bit his lip and finished on a whisper, "please don't die on my birthday."

When he was praying to live through today, to not die on the same day that he was born, it had never occurred to him that he might have been offering her up to the gods instead. And now he would give anything to take that prayer back. Because on some level he felt like this was his fault.

Karma was a fickle, FICKLE bitch!

But just then . . . as his anger started to rise up . . . his fingers lightly pressed into a distorted lump towards the back of Emily's skull. He blanched.

OH CHRIST!

He yanked his hand away. And though he had no medical training beyond a mandatory CPR certification, now that he'd found it, he knew that he had to do something about the wound. If the skull was that distended, and the blood loss was bad enough for it to be pooling on the floor, it was very possible that she could bleed out before the EMTs even arrived. Forget about actually GETTING her to the hospital!

It would be too late for that to even matter!

So while he was sucking in a breath to try and steady his nerves, and he was praying that this was the right move, that he wouldn't injure her further, he very gingerly, being as careful as he could to keep her neck straight, lifted her head up from the cold floor.

Then he twisted his own body down so he could see better.

And though he had mentally braced himself, as best he could anyway, for grey matter to be on the marble beneath her, when he tipped his head way down, all he could see was blood. And fortunately the pool here . . . though "pools" of blood were always bad . . . wasn't nearly as large as it had initially appeared to be. He was now realizing that perhaps it had spread out more because it had soaked through the long strands of hair.

It had given her a crown of blood beyond the basic shape of her head.

Okay . . . Aaron slowly exhaled . . . so that was at least a little bit encouraging. She wasn't 'gushing' blood. Still, he needed to figure out an approach here on what to do.

Bullet wounds had not been covered in the CPR class!

And then as he continued to stare down at the sticky red floor, his palm gently cradling Emily's skull, suddenly Aaron flashed on something from earlier . . . their fall. When he'd pushed her out of the way of the first shots, he'd heard her head hit the floor.

Hard.

So hard in fact that at the time the sound had made him feel sick . . . but then gunfire and glass and general hysteria and fear of death, had pushed that singular moment from his mind. But now that it had come roaring back again, Aaron's mounting despair over Emily's head trauma . . . that it was most surely from a stray bullet . . . began to get pushed aside by a flicker of hope.

He tried to run with it.

Okay . . . he slowly exhaled while very, very gently moving to put her head back down on the floor . . . so maybe there wasn't any bullet at all. Maybe she was just bleeding from where she'd hit her head. And maybe, by extension, she wasn't unconscious because she was literally, dying, maybe it was just that she'd lost so much blood . . . that she'd passed out. He sucked in a breath.

Maybe.

Unfortunately that was a hell of a lot of maybes to string together, but at the moment, it was the best case scenario that he could come up with. And it wasn't at all an implausible scenario either . . . that distorted lump that he'd felt, it could have just been a simple bump, not mangled skull . . . so he was now holding onto that string of maybes for dear life.

His and hers.

Of course this new "best case scenario," still wasn't necessarily a "good scenario" . . . any degree of blood loss resulting in unconsciousness was bad, and any underlying head injury could still be incredibly serious . . . but he was still praying for head bump. Because it was an INFINITELY preferable alternative to the mental image of a piece of lead smashing a hole through her skull, and ripping apart the delicate brain tissue beneath it. That bright and clever mind that had so bewitched him . . . he winced . . . it would be destroyed.

The thought was enough to make him want to throw up.

Which made all of his new 'good' thoughts about 'simple head trauma,' get shoved violently aside. Now he was just feeling a tidal like wave of panic rising. A panic that this girl that he felt so responsible for, and inexplicably connected to, might really be very seriously injured.

She might be dying right in front of him.

And it no longer felt to him like he'd just known her for an hour. And it no longer felt like was just going to know her for a day. It felt like he'd known her forever. The moment that she'd walked into the bank, she'd become a person in his life. And he didn't want to lose her.

His jaw set.

He wouldn't.

"Emily," he started frantically tearing off his dress shirt, the buttons bouncing down to the marble floor and rolling away, "you're going to be okay, I promise."

Then he once more very carefully lifted her head, this time to place the balled up fabric underneath.

He could see the bit of white fabric sticking out, immediately began to soak through. The color changing to match the dark puddle on the floor.

He had to look away.

And that's when he realized that all around him . . . in the turbulent backdrop which he'd been tuning out . . . so many others were also administering their own jerry rigged first aid. Ties as tourniquets on bullet wounds, and shirts ripped up to staunch blood flowing from all kinds of shrapnel injuries. It was like a war zone.

One with no corpsmen.

Seriously . . . he angrily whipped his head around, searching both the bank and the view through the broken windows . . . where the FUCK were the paramedics?! They were part of the God damn FIRE department! And the FIRE department was usually the first one to show up EVERYWHERE!

And Aaron was just about to yell out, to try and get an ambulance ETA from one of the agents, when suddenly he heard a fresh round of sirens joining the cacophony of noise already surrounding the building. Then a second later, one of the plain clothes agents began yelling something into his radio. Aaron's brow wrinkled . . . the man appeared to be sharing statistics of some kind. But he was speaking in a shorthand that he couldn't quite figure out. What the hell was he . . . ?!

PATIENT INJURIES!

That's what it was! He was sharing the types and numbers of injured. Which meant that the ambulances must be closing in on the scene.

Aaron's head again snapped back, and again his eyes frantically searched through the wide open spaces where the windows had once stood. But unfortunately the view there was still the same as it had been a moment before. The area was filled with emergency vehicles.

But no medical vehicles at all.

But then he saw some of the officers outside pointing to the left, so he turned his head. His eyes widened.

FINALLY!

Ambulances . . . lots and lots of ambulances. He could see them coming up to the corner of 18th Street . . . and then they were being waved through the barricades. There were at least a half dozen of them in his direct line of sight.

His eyes fell shut then as his breath came out in one hard exhale.

Thank you God!

And from there it was a new kind of frenzy. Yells to, "MAKE A HOLE, MAKE A HOLE!" as the other vehicles were quickly moved out of the way. And then the first of the ambulances were speeding to a stop out in the street. Doors started slamming, and then off from the side, Aaron could see emergency personnel begin running up to the bank . . . their bags were bouncing on their shoulders. They were moving fast.

Everybody was moving so fast.

All the while Aaron just kept one eye on the door while holding Emily's hand and whispering in her ear. Telling her that she was going to be fine now, and he just needed her to wake up and tell the paramedics where she was hurt.

And then they would make her better.

Unfortunately his actions did not actually assist Emily in regaining consciousness . . . be it a bullet or a cracked skull, talking was rarely known to 'fix' either such medical issue . . . but either way, talking to her made him feel better.

And it was something to do besides go out of his mind while they waited.

But finally . . . though really only maybe twenty or thirty seconds had passed since they'd jumped from their vehicles . . . the first teams of paramedics were rushing in. It was a sea of new faces and uniforms swarming the bank.

Though these uniforms were not carrying guns.

And before Aaron could again call out for help, one of the Secret Service agents . . . the one who had been radioing in their injury statistics . . . was pointing in their direction. Apparently his status as "one of them" had been passed along.

Good.

Still though, Aaron quickly waved his own arm to pinpoint for the two navy clad men now rushing in their direction.

"Here!" He yelled, "it's her head! She hit it really hard on the floor when she fell. But," he shook his own head as the first of the two men dropped to his knees by their side, "she could have been shot too. I don't know what happened just before she passed out. My eyes were closed because of the smoke. She was talking, and then she was unconscious and there was," he swallowed, his gaze shifting down to her pale skin, "blood in her hair."

The paramedic muttered back an, "okay, sir," as he started checking Emily's vitals, and for the first time since the whole frigging nightmare had started . . . maybe twenty plus minutes earlier . . . Aaron fell back and to the side. It was the first time he'd moved completely off of Emily's body since they'd hit the floor.

But he was still holding onto her hand.

For some reason it seemed imperative that he not let it go.

Though he did try to at least get fully out of the way so the paramedics could properly check her head. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that neither of these men who were working on her . . . they'd already put her in a collar to minimize spinal trauma . . . were going to be in any better position to confirm exactly what was wrong with Emily, than Aaron himself had been. Because when they pushed aside her hair, it was clear to them that she had a distended piece of skull, and a bloody spot . . . but they couldn't really tell WHY her head was swollen and what was causing the bleeding.

They needed an X-Ray to figure out what was going on in her brain.

Then he did hear one of them murmur that at least a bullet hole wasn't "readily apparent," but then the other responded that with as much hair as she had, that a small hole could easily be hidden.

So that exchange really did nothing for Aaron's nerves.

The one positive take away from their examination versus Aaron's examination, was that the wound, whatever had caused the bleeding, it now at least seemed to be clotting. So once they'd made sure that Emily was stable, and had put in a line in for fluids . . . the one thing it was clear that she needed no matter what . . . one of them yelled for a backboard. Again, Aaron scrambled to get out of the way.

But still he held tight to her hand.

And then thirty, forty seconds later, two other firefighters came in with the backboard. Now there were four strange men touching her . . . somehow Aaron instinctively knew how much she would hate this moment . . . and Emily's body was lifted up to place the board underneath. But as one of the men started to slide it down, Aaron saw that Emily's dress was caught on the edge of the hard plastic.

The fabric was riding up.

And feeling a stab of both protectiveness and panic . . . that after all of the other indignities that she was suffering in this moment, that she would be physically exposed too . . . with his free hand he quickly caught the hem of her skirt, and hurriedly smoothed it back down over her thigh. Then he patted her leg and whispered in her ear.

"It's okay. I fixed it."

Again, he was hoping that she could hear him. And he just wanted her to know . . . he was watching out for her. She didn't have to worry.

She wasn't alone.

And so he stayed right with her as they lifted her up, the wheels on the gurney locked . . . and they started hurriedly rolling her out to the ambulance.

As they moved through the bank . . . flew through the bank really . . . Aaron couldn't help but take note of the other people that were also desperately in need of medical attention. That poor woman that was missing her hand . . . she was screaming as she held the nub to her chest . . . she was breaking his heart. But she was being helped too. She had her own team of street weary medical professionals at her side.

The problem was, there just weren't enough of them to go around.

There were VERY few people in the bank that hadn't been injured one way or another. Most were walking wounded like him . . . the glass spray had almost everyone . . . but there were many others that definitely had bullet wounds or glass injuries that were going to require stitches and surgeries.

It was a hell of a mess.

The Secret Service agents were trying to assert some order to the mess though, moving the least seriously injured people off to the area by the teller windows.

And part of Aaron . . . that damn civil servant, must save the world, part . . . was thinking that he should stay. That his basic CPR certification, just renewed last fall thank you very much, would at least allow him to help with the triage. But he didn't stay.

He kept going.

Shoving aside the guilt that he had pushed Emily to the front of the pack . . . and he was now leaving the pack behind. But there was no other option. Because the reality of the situation, was like the world itself. Hard and cold.

These people were just somebody else's problem.

So he stayed with his new friend Emily, who was starting to feel like a very old friend indeed. And with her black leather purse jammed under one arm . . . he'd actually thought to scoop it up when they were lifting her off the floor . . . and her delicate fingers still clenched in his larger ones, he ran alongside the gurney as it was pushed off the marble floor and into the alcove leading outside.

The wheels squeaked with the change in floor texture.

And though he was half cringing, waiting for one of the agents to grab him . . . to say that he had to stay and give his statement . . . somehow he slipped out the doors without anybody wearing a badge questioning his departure.

Small mercies indeed.

But then just ahead of him, as he blinked at the bright mid-day sun, Aaron spotted a plainclothes Secret Service agent. He was standing in the middle of the blocked off section of Penn between the bank and the Treasury. The guy wasn't much older than him really, but it became immediately apparent that he was the one taking control of the scene. Barking orders and sending people and vehicles this way and that. And the second that the two of them made eye contact . . . and he summed up what was happening, that they were on their way out . . . Aaron knew that this guy was going to open his mouth.

And sure enough.

"Sir, if you are not severely injured, you are NOT yet cleared to leave the scene!" He yelled.

But Aaron wasn't having any of that shit. Very few times in his life had he EVER followed an order that was barked at him. He generally gave those kinds of orders . . . he didn't take them. So in response he simply yanked his credentials from his pants pocket. He'd moved beyond the lanyard having special powers.

He needed the shield.

"DOJ!" he yelled back while flipping his badge open, "and I am leaving!"

Though Aaron appreciated the need to try and preserve the scene and witnesses exactly as they were . . . he'd expect no less from the agents who brought him his cases . . . he wasn't staying.

It just wasn't happening.

And so as the agent started to run over, with a hand up to stop him, Aaron used just his thumb to slip one of his business cards out from behind his ID. And while still hurrying along with Emily's gurney . . . the paramedics certainly weren't slowing down, nor would he want them to . . . he blindly shoved the card out towards the agent running up beside him.

"Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Hotchner," he continued with a slight breathlessness as he jammed the card into the other man's hand, "I'm assigned here in the District at main headquarters. I report to John Milner in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division. Somebody can take my statement at the hospital, or I can come back here and give it later. But," his jaw tightened as he shot a look down to Emily's still body, "she'd badly hurt, and I'm not leaving her alone right now."

They had just reached the ambulance, and as the paramedics stopped to open the doors, Aaron looked over to the angry man that wanted him to stay.

The man carrying the gun.

And though ordinarily, in most scenarios, the man carrying the gun would be 'the winner' in ANY duel, anywhere, Aaron had no fear of this man. They worked for sister agencies. It would be a political nightmare if a Secret Service threatened an Assistant U.S. Attorney with a firearm simply because he wanted to give a witness statement at a later time.

The guy would lose his job.

And as their eyes locked, Aaron could see that his opponent was as aware of this fact as he himself was. Because his jaw was twitching and his fist was clenching, and to Aaron it was quite clear that this man was as used to winning these pissing contests, as Aaron himself was. Though still, he had no doubt who was going to take the prize in this skirmish.

And sure enough, a split second later, the other man blinked and jammed the business card into his inside jacket pocket.

"We'll have agents at GWU," he grumbled, "I'm giving them your name. They'll be looking for you." Then he wagged his finger in Aaron's face as he shot him a look, "do NOT leave there without giving the formal statement, are we clear?"

"Yes," Aaron gave a hurried nod as he scrambled up with Emily's stretcher into the back of the ambulance, "I promise, I will find them, if they don't find me."

At that, the agent's countenance softened slightly as he put his hand up on the ambulance door.

"Okay." Then his gaze shifted down to Emily . . . Aaron still hadn't let go of her hand.

"Good luck with your wife," he added softly.

Then he slammed the door shut.

For a second Aaron stared at it in confusion, wondering why he would think that she was his wife. But then he realized that his hand . . . the one that was holding Emily's . . . was the one wearing his ring.

As he looked down at that band of gold, now sticky with blood, he felt a faint stirring of unease. Though he wouldn't have thought it was possible, not after all this time, he'd actually forgotten . . . for a split second . . . that he was married.

How does that happen?!

But then the question was lost as the ambulance tore out in a somewhat ragged U-turn. And even though he was already sitting, Aaron reached over with his free hand to steady himself along the side wall.

He could kind of use a seat belt.

And then they bumped over the sidewalk, and the paramedic sitting in the jump seat up by Emily's head, yelled through the divider to take it easy. Then he turned his head to begin calling in Emily's vitals and their ETA to the hospital, through the radio clipped to his collar. Aaron stared at him for a moment, before his gaze shifted down to Emily's pretty face.

Of course her eyes were still shut.

But noting then the streaks of mascara from her tears, the smears of blood from where he'd touched her jaw, and the earlier splatters from the man who had been shot, his expression softened. He reached across her body, his hand hovering for a moment over the supplies in the cabinet fixed to the other wall. Then he saw them.

A box of plain disinfectant wipes.

He snagged one and sat back on the bench seat. Then he put one hand on her arm, and with the other began gently cleaning up her face.

It wasn't a perfect job . . . he really needed soap and water to do it right . . . but he got the worst of it. And once he was done, while carefully avoiding the gaze of the paramedic . . . he could feel the other man's eyes on him, and he had no idea what he was thinking . . . he tucked the two soiled wipes into his pants pocket.

Then he once more tangled their fingers together, before sitting back again.

"Are we going to GWU?" He asked quietly, trying to shift the focus away from what he'd just done.

Though there was nothing intrinsically 'inappropriate' about his actions . . . all he'd done was clean up her face . . . having those actions assessed by another, was making him feel uncomfortable.

Like he'd done something wrong.

There was silence for moment before he heard a, "yeah, best trauma team on this side of the city. She'll be in good hands. Only a couple of blocks to go."

Aaron nodded slowly, while his thumb gently stroked the underside of Emily's wrist. That action was one out of view from any peering eyes.

"Right," he took a breath and looked out the back window, "couple blocks."

He didn't speak again for the rest of the ride.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/

When they got to the hospital, Aaron was allowed to stay with Emily as they rolled her down the hall to the triage room. It was more controlled chaos as the ER team began their evaluation of her condition. Again Aaron just tried to get out of the way . . . though at that point he had to let go of her hand.

His fingers curled as he pulled them back.

And then he stepped off to the side, and the doctors started shooting questions at him over their shoulders. Emily's full name, her symptoms . . . the series of events leading up to her losing consciousness. He answered each point as quickly and succinctly as he could. Even remembering to add the earlier bump to the head when she'd fallen the first time she'd walked into the bank. That resulted in a pause in movements as the two lead physicians seemed to exchange a look. And then the female doctor asked if Emily was allergic to any medication.

He said he didn't know.

At that, the woman gave a nod and a wave before she leaned over to check Emily's pupils. Though Aaron wanted to stay and see what she reported . . . if there was any dilation . . . an older nurse took his arm and started walking him out.

Apparently he'd just reached his exit off the freeway.

Still though, even as he was pulled from the room, his eyes stayed locked on Emily's body. But then he saw one of the nurses take a pair of scissors and start cutting away her clothes.

He flinched and turned his head.

That was one violation that he couldn't save her from.

And after that . . . for him anyway . . . it became a waiting game.

First the nurse brought him to his own exam room across the hall. It smelled vaguely of disinfectant, but also of urine and . . . his nose wrinkled . . . feces. Clearly the disinfectant had not been strong enough to cover over the smells from the last patient. Vaguely he wondered who it had been . . . what had happened.

If he or she had lived or died.

But then that thought was lost when the nurse plopped him down on a stool and began asking him a variation on the same questions he'd just answered as related to Emily. Again, the woman started with the most obvious . . . his name. Then it was all the typical ones from there.

Or at least the typical ones for an emergency room intake form.

Was he in any pain, had he too hit his head . . . had he suffered any trauma or injuries besides the cuts that were visible on his arms and face?

Though his attention was still mainly on Emily's condition . . . he had half an eye over the nurse's shoulder watching the other doorway . . . somehow he managed to stammer a series of responses to the inquiries. The answers seemed to satisfy the woman, so he must have been fairly coherent. Then she took his vitals, noting each of them on the chart as she went along. He had no idea if they were normal or not . . . and didn't think to ask until after she'd left the room . . . but the only thing that she checked twice was his blood pressure . . . so he figured that overall they must have been normal enough.

The last thing she asked as she started for the door was if he was allergic to any medication.

That time the answer was a clear, "no."

She nodded, made another notation and walked out. A split second later she poked her head back around the corner and told him not to move from that spot. After he'd given her a firm nod of understanding . . . unlike gun carrying Secret Service agents, he didn't screw around with inner city ER nurses . . . she disappeared again.

She left him there for six minutes and forty-two seconds.

He knew this was the time that passed, because he was watching the hands on the wall clock spin round and round. And as the seconds ticked away, he realized that the amount of time he was losing was probably the same amount that he had lost while waiting for the gunfire to stop.

He'd had no idea that time could move so quickly, and so slowly, all in the same day.

As he sat there, out of the corner of his eye he saw more gurneys go flying past his room. He realized that the other victims from the bank were arriving.

The corridor was starting to look like Grand Central.

Then a new nurse suddenly breezed into his room and said that she was there to bandage him up. And though she introduced herself as she was snapping on her gloves, he didn't get her name. His attention was too focused on trying to see what was happening across the corridor.

Where Emily was.

Because now there was some kind of commotion in her room. Though he'd seen people in scrubs hurrying in and out since he'd left, this was the first time that there was a lot of new noise focused solely out of that area. But just as he was about to ask the nurse what was happening . . . Emily's gurney came flying out into the corridor, her doctors were running along on either side.

The only two words he caught clearly were "surgery" and "hematoma."

Shit.

Feeling a chill run up his spine, he twisted his head to try and see her before she was gone . . . all he got was a glimpse of her hand dangling off the side of the gurney.

It was so white.

His eyes fell shut as he took a breath. Then he felt the nurse touch his shoulder a split second before she asked him if he was okay. And though he wasn't feeling at all okay, not even a little bit . . . even if it hadn't been a bullet, he knew that a hematoma was still very bad news . . . he nodded back with a murmured affirmation that he was fine.

Then his eyes popped open again . . . nurse no name was looking down at him with a faintly concerned eyebrow. So he took another breath, and repeated his answer with a bit more strength in his voice.

"Really, I'm fine. Let's just get this done."

And after a second of staring . . . this was the second person today who was almost as good at that game as he was . . . she tipped her head and pulled her little tray over in front of him. Then she rolled up another stool, sat down, and started cleaning out his cuts.

It stung a bit.

And based on her occasional tsking and nose scrunching, he deduced that some of them were bad. Worse clearly than he'd realized, but he hadn't been paying much attention to his own injuries.

Clearly Emily's had been the foremost on his mind.

But after the nurse had placed butterflies on the less serious lacerations, she snapped off her gloves and pointed to first to his forehead and then his forearm, "you need stitches in both." So he gave another nod, and another muttered, "okay."

And then that nurse disappeared too.

She was gone MUCH longer than the first one. The clock spins showed first twenty . . . then thirty . . . then forty minutes go by. The noise from the outside the room was getting louder. And though he wasn't at all, by any definition, a patient man, he just sat there very still. He was thinking about Emily.

And that's really all that he was doing.

Running over their morning, minute by minute, matching those minutes up against the ones that were now slipping through his fingers. And he wondered if she really was going to die. If she'd come into his life on this day, for this reason . . . for him to remember her. His eyes began to burn.

And for her to have just one man be nice to her before she passed away.

Oh Christ . . . he blinked and scrubbed his hand down his face . . . he was seriously about to start crying over the theoretical death of a woman he'd only known for a fraction of a day. Not that that the length of their acquaintanceship should matter in theory as to whether or not he should be sad about her dying. But somehow it seemed like it always did. Like it was another thing that people judged you for. Like fixing her face in the ambulance.

It just wasn't 'appropriate' to become so attached, so quickly.

But as he sat there waiting, his gaze shifting between the green tile floor and the black clock hands slowly winding round and round, he knew that regardless of their earlier agreement to part after today, he wasn't done with Emily just yet. Because as he flashed back on the spot of warmth he'd felt in seeing her smile, and the angst in his stomach when he'd found her crying in the park, and the possessiveness he'd felt in protecting her modesty, suddenly he had an epiphany. They were supposed to know each other. They were supposed to be . . . something.

But he didn't know quite what.

And he didn't know how long they were supposed to be, whatever they were. But to date, there had been maybe one or two people that had passed through his life, that he'd made such a connection with, in such a short period of time.

Instantaneously.

And he knew, knew it in his soul, that if she didn't make it through her surgery, her loss was going to leave a mark on him. He was trying to picture a future where she lived, and one where she died . . . and how his life might be different in each version.

But then suddenly Nurse No Name came rushing back again.

This time she had a white coat with her.

By his age, and the pimples, Aaron assumed it was a first year resident. Though, even if he was very young, he seemed to be competent enough. His name was Doctor Joyner. And the kid quickly numbed him up, stitched him up and checked his blood pressure again.

127/85

Not his usual, but it still wasn't that high either. And given the day that he'd had, and was still having, Aaron wasn't particularly concerned about the slight elevation. And apparently the doctor wasn't either. He just told him that it was down from when the nurse took it on intake . . . 140/90, he read off the chart . . . and to make sure to follow up in a few days with his regular physician to confirm that the blood pressure was back to normal, and that the stitches were all right.

Then he gave him a shot of antibiotics, yanked off his gloves, dropped them in the bucket . . . and walked out of the exam room. Though Aaron saw the nurse roll her eyes at his rudeness, Aaron himself could care less. In situations like these, social niceties had always been a minor point to him. He'd rather have a competent doctor who was a bit of a jerk, than a nice one who was a complete idiot.

And either way . . . he sighed as he came to his feet and snatched Emily's purse up from the floor . . . at least now he was done.

So the nurse walked him out to the main desk while rattling off a short list of instructions on things to watch for, nausea, dizziness, red lines on his skin . . . green puss oozing out of any of his cuts. That kind of stuff.

The 'you're about to drop dead of blood poisoning' type stuff.

Aaron muttered his affirmation that he understood what she was saying, and then he tried to get an update on Emily's condition, but the woman shrugged and said she didn't know. She'd just been called in for the mass casualty event and had only signed in thirty seconds before she walked into his room. And then she handed him off to the woman running the ER intake desk, with the suggestion to check with her.

Before she left, the nurse dropped his chart down on the counter, and then the clerk began to flip through it. A second later she started pulling out pages . . . blank, pages . . . that he needed fill out.

He took them with a faintly anxious nod before looking back to the woman.

"I'm trying to get an update on Emily Prentiss," he made a gesture to the back of his head as he put Emily's purse down on the counter, "the head injury, they were taking her to surgery."

The woman looked down at the black leather bag, and then over at him in surprise.

"Oh, are you the husband?"

Before Aaron could respond beyond a confused, "uhh," she started digging around in her stack of files.

"The paramedic's chart said that she came in with her husband," she continued with a faint wrinkling of her brow, still digging in her pile, "but we didn't see the notation until she'd been sent up to surgery, and it's been so chaotic with so many people coming in so fast, that we hadn't had time to find you yet." She slapped another file down on the counter between them and started rifling through the papers.

Then she pulled out a small stack of forms . . . they looked to be the same ones that she'd just pulled out of his file.

"Please fill out this set for your wife, Mr. Hotchner."

"Wait," Aaron's face scrunched as he put his hand up, "no, sorry, I'm not . . ."

And then he was cut off by another voice coming up behind him.

"You're Aaron Hotchner?"

Aaron turned to see two middle aged white men, in two nearly identical black suits, standing behind him . . . obviously the Secret Service had tracked him down.

"Yes," he blinked and nodded, "that's me," then he put his finger up, "one second though." He turned back to the clerk.

"I just wanted to get an update on Emily's condition, I'm not . . ."

And again he was cut off by the same Secret Service agent.

"Emily," he started scribbling in his notebook, "that's your wife? And what's her last name? The same as yours?"

"Uh no," Aaron shook his head, "no, her last name is Prentiss, but um . . ."

And then he stopped talking, realizing he was getting caught in a loop. And nobody was really listening to him anyway.

One thing at a time at a time Aaron . . . he sighed to himself . . . one thing at a time.

So he turned back to the clerk.

"How is she?"

The woman flipped the chart open again, and her finger started running down the summary page in the front.

"Some minor lacerations, the only serious injury was the subdural hematoma, they took her up to surgery about forty minutes ago." Then her eyes snapped back over to his.

"She's going to be at least another couple hours, but," she pointed down to the papers in his hands, "once you fill those out," she gave him a look, "and bring them back to me, you can go up to wait for her on four. Somebody will come find you when she's done."

For a second Aaron stared back at the woman, wide eyed . . . the correction was sitting on the tip of his tongue. Then he looked down at the papers in his hand, and then back up to the woman again. Finally he tipped his head.

"Okay."

Though it wasn't his intention to mislead these people as to his relationship with Emily, he'd just realized that he wouldn't be able to get any information on her condition at all, if he wasn't a family member of some kind. And given that they'd already made the notation that she had a husband . . . and assumed that he was it . . . it was easier to just let them continue to believe what they already believed, than to make up something else. And really, he didn't want to lie to anybody about anything, he just didn't want to get kicked out the door. So he would let their presumption continue for now.

Just until Emily was out of surgery.

And it wasn't just that he wanted to stay in the loop on her condition, there was another reason . . . he didn't want her to be all alone at the hospital.

That would be too sad.

But the SECOND that they started asking him for permission to do anything to her as it related to her medical treatment, he'd clear up the confusion. And in the meantime . . . he turned to face the two Secret Service agents standing behind him.

Who could it hurt?

A/N 2: Aaron's rhetorical question to himself here, was a deliberate mirror'ing of the earlier chapter when he posed the same thought about stopping to talk to Emily for a few minutes. And obviously there's no 'farcical' element here in him being mistaken for her husband. He was clearly very distressed at her condition, told everybody that she was 'with him', wouldn't let her go to the hospital alone, he's got her purse, and was wearing a bright gold wedding ring. What else would people assume? Exactly.

A little bit of a different kind of balance here in writing his reaction to her condition. He's very concerned (obviously panicked when it's just him alone trying to take care of her) but it's not like 'established' versions of them where he'd be totally controlled freaking out trying to get news. He's not so fervent, which is new, because this is the first version of them I've written where one of them was hurt or sick and they BARELY knew each other. So it is kind of tapping into a different approach to the emotional reaction. Especially when he's really not supposed to be having ANY emotional reaction, because he's got that wife he briefly forgot about :) And yes, Haley will be in this story, and if you are a Haley Hater, you're going to enjoy it!

Random visualization point, though I have actually been to the GWU ER a couple times, I'm not describing that one in here. I'm actually picturing the emergency room here more like the one on ER. It was just what was in my head when I started typing it, so now that can be in your head too :)

Okay, thanks everybody!