AN – So how did we all enjoy the suspense? I never said I put cliffhangers in to be nice, but they sure are fun to use to torture my readers! Anyway, I'll stop being mean now and get on with the next chapter…
XXXXX
Hotch feels his heart stop the minute Reid's does.
"No, no, NO!" he screams, darting forward towards his partner, Rossi only just managing to catch him and restrain him from doing so.
"You have to let them do their jobs, Aaron," Rossi reasons, the calm demeanour he's projecting cracking slightly as he watches the medics hurriedly rip open Reid's shirt and place the paddles of a defibrillator against his bloodstained skin.
Hotch offers no intelligible response, he simply lets out a soft whimper and sags against Rossi's hold. As much as he wants to look away, he can't tear his gaze away from the sight in front of him, and he knows the image will haunt him for the rest of his life.
"Clear!"
Reid's body convulses as a jolt of electricity courses through his chest. His pulse is checked. The EMT shakes his head.
"Clear!"
"Come on kid, you can do this," Morgan whispers shakily as Reid is shocked again. Another check. Another shake of the EMT's head.
"Clear!"
Hotch feels his stomach tying itself into increasingly tight knots with each shout of the command. Tears stream down his face and his legs tremble under the weight of keeping himself upright, his panic having drained all the strength from his body. He's dead. He's dead he's dead he's dead, his brain supplies, and suddenly Hotch is hit by the sensation of feeling completely and utterly alone. His partner, the man he loves more than anything, had just been snatched away from him, leaving him behind all on his own.
So lost is he in his grief that he doesn't immediately process the medic's cry of, "he's back!" As it slowly filters into his brain, he gasps a sigh of relief, releasing a breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding. "Pulse is weak and erratic, we've got to get him out of here and into surgery now!" is the medic's next assessment, and immediately there's a flurry of movement as Reid is secured onto a gurney and carried out of the room. Hotch instinctually moves to follow them, pulling away from Rossi's now loosened grip and trailing after the stretcher as it carries Reid through a house Hotch has never actually seen the inside of.
"Hey Aaron, we'll meet you at the hospital," explains Rossi, but the words fall on deaf ears as Hotch lets his sole focus remain on the incredibly pale man in front of him.
XXXXX
The ambulance ride to the hospital is pure hell. Hotch never thought he would feel a vehicle moving so seemingly slowly in his life. Despite blazing sirens, the drive still takes an agonising amount of time, with Hotch holding desperately onto Reid's hand the entire way. Reid crashes again during the journey, the paddles only just bringing him back, and Hotch's chest physically hurts with the stress of watching Reid be resuscitated. He prays for this to all be a dream, a nightmare from which he'll awake any second. But every minute that passes only hammers in the knowledge that this is all very, very real.
There's a moment of what Hotch would almost describe as tranquillity towards the end of the journey. He sits next to the gurney running his thumb tenderly over the back of Reid's hand, a hushed silence having fallen over the ambulance as the EMT works quickly and quietly to stop as much of the bleeding as she can. Hotch's gaze falls on Reid's face, looking almost peaceful with his eyes closed as they have been for so long, and a fresh wave of tears wells up in Hotch's eyes. "Please, Spencer, you have to get through this," he says softly, his voice breaking as he speaks. "I'm so, so sorry for what I did. You have to wake up so I can make this up to you. Please."
He hangs his head and lets the tears slide down his face, too wrapped up in his guilt to even bother wiping them away. He's about to say something else, to bargain and beg and plead for Reid to be okay, when the ambulance comes to an abrupt stop and the rear doors are thrown open. Hotch is pushed ungracefully to the side as hospital personnel storm into the ambulance and extract the gurney from the vehicle, wheeling it quickly inside the building as the EMT informs them of the situation. Hotch does the only thing he can think to do and hurries after them, rushing into the hospital and down the corridor as Reid is taken to what he assumes will be the operating room.
The medics usher Reid through a doorway marked with red tape, through which Hotch tries to follow only to be stopped by a tall woman wearing a hospital security uniform. "Hospital personnel only," she explains bluntly, pointing to a sign on the door repeating the same words. "Surgical waiting room is down there." A nod of her head to the other end of the corridor indicates its location.
Hotch wants to fight, to scream that that's the man he loves and that they have to stay together, but even in his frazzled state, he knows better than to start a fight with a security guard. He just nods and stands there silently for a moment, watching as the gurney carrying one of the most precious people in his life is wheeled away from him, until eventually it rounds a corner and is lost from his sight.
XXXXX
AN – well, Reid isn't dead! (Yet!) What did we all think of this new chapter? Reid just about made it to the hospital, but is he out of the woods yet? Find out in our next instalment, which will be published whenever I can get around to it. And don't forget to favourite, follow and review, it feeds my little writer soul!
