Author's Note: Picking up a few hours later here, and I decided to have Faith and Bosco stick around for a little bit longer.

The Breaking Point

Emily leaned over and scrubbed her hands down her face. A face that was already sticky from her earlier tears.

She hadn't had time to wash up yet.

Well, technically she'd had 'time' . . . it had been a little over three hours since they'd arrived at the hospital . . . but ten minutes after she'd found herself panting and gasping on the emergency room floor, one of the nurses had escorted her raggedy little group up to the private, tenth floor, waiting room.

She hadn't moved again.

No, even though she definitely had a few sprains that needed to be wrapped, and cuts that needed to be cleaned out, since they'd been brought upstairs she'd been sitting firmly on her ass in that small, brightly lit waiting area, absolutely TERRIFIED of leaving the room for any reason at all. Because if she stepped out, then she might somehow miss an update on Hotch's surgery.

The knot in her stomach felt like it was made out of lead.

There were others around her of course. No strangers thank God, but most of the team was there now. Everyone but Garcia, actually. She had stayed back in Quantico when the rest of them came to New York, and even though they knew she'd hear it on the morning news, they had opted not to tell her yet about Hotch. It was already the middle of the night, so Rossi had decided that there was no point in making her crazy with worry when she was all alone back in Virginia.

Morgan had agreed.

And he'd said that he'd call her once the surgery was done, and there was actually concrete news to share. So without Garcia and Hotch there, the empty seats in that private waiting room were still being filled out by Will, and surprisingly enough . . . just given how long they'd been there now . . . those same two officers who had helped to bring Hotch in.

Yokas and Boscorelli.

Faith and Bosco, as Emily now knew them as, yeah they'd stayed too. Officially, as in the reasoning she'd heard Boscorelli radio in to their captain, was that they felt if, quote, "the victim" . . . a term which had made Emily wince . . . was lucid when he woke up, maybe they could get a statement from him about what had happened directly before the explosion. It was possible that he'd seen one of the perps in the vicinity of the bomb.

Boscorelli's argument had sounded perfectly reasonable of course, Hotch could have seen something relevant to the investigation, but in reality, his argument was complete crap and Emily knew that Bosco knew it too. Because Hotch's injuries were so severe, that even if he survived his surgery . . . Emily swallowed . . . and if he wasn't in a coma when he got out of that surgery, then it was still going to be hours, if not potentially days, before he would likely be in any condition to start answering questions. Her jaw clenched.

Especially questions like that.

So no, the officers had stayed to see things through simply because Faith said that they were vested now. Hotch might not have been NYPD, but law enforcement was a bond by itself.

And they just wanted to make sure that he would be okay.

That had touched Emily, deeply. Because she knew that they were probably staying as much for her, as his partner, as they were for Hotch himself. But the curious thing was, or at least it was curious to her, was that she'd chosen to sit with these officers that she'd just met a few hours ago, rather than with her own people.

The divide had been very deliberate.

Because the others, they were, 'upset.' JJ and Reid had been crying off and on, Rossi had been hunched over praying, Morgan pacing and punching things, and everybody was just so . . . Emily sighed . . . emotional.

And she could not afford to be emotional.

Because she was, "The Secret Girlfriend." And as, The Secret Girlfriend, she was seriously on the verge of completely LOSING it! And not just some quiet weeping like JJ was doing, but really a full on mental breakdown. The ugly, embarrassing, kind. And it wasn't just the worrying that was eroding her control.

It was the stress.

First the stress of the case by itself, and then there was Detective Cooper's murder, and then the crap with Kate and Hotch, and then the bombing of Kate and Hotch, and now just the WAITING! All together, it was just too much for one week. Even for someone like her, someone who thrived on a manic pace . . . she'd reached her limit for bullshit. The worst thing happening right now though, the thing that was really pushing her towards the precipice, it was the surgical updates.

Specifically, the current 'gap' in them.

Because Emily's eyes had been bouncing back and forth between the clock on the wall, and the watch on her wrist. So she knew that it had been ninety-four minutes and counting since the last time the nurse had come out to brief them.

Before this gap, Nurse Amenguale had been out after the first hour of surgery, wringing her mask in her hands, as she'd told them that, quote, "Agent Hotchner's condition is critical, but the surgery is going as well as can be expected under the circumstances." That was nearly two hours ago.

Nobody had spoken to them since.

Which meant that most likely something had to have happened in the operating room. Something which was likely . . . Emily's nails dug into her palm . . . not good. And all of the 'not good' things that could have happened in there when he was already critical, were RACING through her mind! The stress was actually becoming a physical manifestation of pain. It was like a front of the skull migraine, and a base of the skull tension headache, had now combined forces.

They were destroying her brain from within.

Basically she wanted to go throw up, and then crawl into a dark room to cry for an hour. No . . . she felt a pang of grief in her chest . . . really she just wanted Hotch.

And right now he was the one thing beyond her reach.

Emily's internal misery was interrupted by a sudden tap to the shoulder. Her head snapped back to see that Boscorelli was now standing in front of her, holding out a cup.

"Stole you some tea from the nurse's lounge," he said softly.

Feeling a fresh, unexpected, surge of emotions rise up . . . a kind act, tearing into whatever minimal emotional control she had left . . . Emily's eyes immediately started to water. But then just as quickly as those tears came, she blinked them away to instead reach out to take the cup from Boscorelli's hand.

She gave him a grateful nod.

"Thank you," she whispered as the smooth cardboard pressed against her asphalt scraped palm. And he tipped his head just before he pulled his hand back. Then he took two steps over to once more drop down into the seat next to his partner.

Faith was sitting directly to Emily's right.

Emily leaned back in her chair, clenching the hot cup tightly in her hand, more than welcoming the pain burning the tips of her fingers. It was then that she felt the other woman pat her leg.

A second later she leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"I know ya getting worried," she started in softly with her heavy New York accent, "because it's taking so long to hear anything, but trust me," she jerked her thumb over to the right, "this one, we got attacked once, in a hospital no less, and he got shot more times than you can count. His whole face was messed up. He died twice," Faith held up two fingers, "on the operating table, and look at him over there, he's still kicking."

Though she'd just seen Boscorelli ten seconds earlier, after hearing what she'd just heard, Emily couldn't help but lean around Faith to look over at the woman's partner again.

When she made eye contact with the other officer, he just gave her a shrug.

"What can I say?" He flopped his hand down into his lap. "I'm invincible."

"No," Faith cut in with a dirty look in his direction, "you're not Bos, and that's my point." Her gaze shifted back to Emily. "He had no business whatsoever living through that night, let alone recovering the way he did to be here with me right now. But it happened. And it'll happen for your partner too." She sat back with a firm nod.

"I'm sure of it."

For a second Emily just sat there, chewing on her lip as she looked back and forth between these two officers with such different personalities. Then, slowly, she leaned back, and a feeling of warmth began to settle down over her. And with it, a little of the tension began to bleed out from her shoulders.

Not all of it of course, it was just a tiny bit, but enough that she started to realize something vital. Yokas and Boscorelli . . . she was supposed to meet them that night. They weren't just a couple of random LEOs who happened to be working the perimeter of Hotch's crime scene . . . they were important. What they were telling her, right now, it was important.

And she needed to hold onto it.

Because what they were giving her, was what had slowly been leeching away these hours that she'd been sitting in that chair.

Hope.

It was something that Will had helped her to hold onto at the bomb site, but here, now, the longer they waited, the more she'd had time to think. Think clinically, and logically. And for someone like her, with the knowledge that she had, those thoughts were like poison. A poison eating away at her gut.

And her future.

Because she'd been sitting there for so many of those empty minutes, just staring down at her fingers . . . the ones that Hotch had cradled the last time she saw him. And she was remembering the gentleness in his caress, and how he had kissed her. And then lastly, how he had held her.

Like he didn't want to let her go.

And she would remember all of those things . . . and then she would remember his injuries. And she was remembering them, assessing them, against EVERYTHING that she knew about the level of trauma that a human body could not only sustain . . . but survive. And she knew that even with the best of treatment, and the best of luck, and ALL of the prayers in the world, Hotch was still coming RIGHT up on the edge of those survival odds. But then here she was waiting with these two cops who had already saved his life once that night, and then they had this story to tell.

A story to save her too.

And as Emily once more settled back into her lumpy chair, her eyes began to sting again. But that time she didn't blink away the pool forming. Instead she looked down at the cup in her hand, and let one of those tears slowly slip down her cheek.

A second later she brushed it away.

"Thank you," she whispered to Faith. And the other woman turned to give her a little smile.

"You're welcome." She jerked her chin down to the cup. "Now you drink your tea. And you keep a good thought, okay?"

"Yeah," Emily sniffled as she gave her new friend a watery smile, "okay."

And she settled back once more.

So time began to pass again. Another twenty minutes . . . and then another thirty. And during that time, Rossi kept praying, JJ kept crying . . . and Morgan kept pacing. Reid had started maniacally speed-reading a stack of old medical journals. He was on his fourth.

It had been twenty minutes since he'd started the first one.

And Emily, when she wasn't watching the others across the room, she just sat there, sipping her slowly cooling tea, while her eyes stayed locked down at a scuff mark on the tile floor. It was the same one that she'd been staring at hours earlier when it had just been her there with the three detectives. Even after she'd sent Rossi the text to tell him that she had found Hotch and that they were at St. Joseph's, it had taken the rest of the team over an hour to actually get clearance to get into the building.

They were still on lockdown.

And when the others had finally been able to get upstairs, and had barged into the waiting room, everyone had started talking at once. It was awful.

All of the questions that they had shot at her, it had been like a barrage of teary bullets.

WHAT WAS HE DOING OUT THERE?! HOW DID YOU KNOW WHERE HE WAS?! WAS HE BURNED?! WAS HE CRUSHED?! DID HIS HEART STOP?!

WAS HE BREATHING?!

Horrible questions. Every single one of them . . . a horrible question. And even though Emily had known that she had to say something, that the others deserved to at least know as much as she did about Hotch's condition . . . she couldn't get the words out.

She couldn't get ANY words out!

But that was because she was too busy trying to suck in a lungful of oxygen, and exhale out the carbon dioxide . . . before she started the whole process all over again.

That task . . . breathing . . . it was taking all of her focus.

Thank God though, Will seemed to realize what was happening, that she was having an anxiety attack, and had cut into the din. And then with a supportive hand on her back, he began to answer the questions that she couldn't. One by one, as succinctly as possible, he got through them all. And when he was done, and they were all standing there with their mouths half open, that was when he told them that it was because of her that Hotch had been found. But that she'd almost been killed in a follow-up explosion. That he'd found her in the fire . . . and they needed to cut her some slack.

"Just give her some space, guys. Please, just give her some space."

Those last words he'd said as fingers had dug into her shoulder, pressing through both her windbreaker, and her vest. And Emily had realized then how he was trying to protect not only her, but also her relationship with Hotch. It was such an unexpectedly kind thing to do.

He really was a good man.

It was strange, but in that moment she'd actually felt a wave of warmth and true affection for that Cajun detective. She could see how JJ had fallen for him, and she could see that he would be a good addition to their dysfunctional little family.

A little family that would only be whole again, if Hotch was there with them.

And that of course was the prayer of that hour, and every hour since. For Hotch to come back. It was the first thing that Dave muttered when Will finished speaking.

"Father in Heaven, please watch over him."

It was a prayer that broke most of them from their frozen stance by the door. Nobody had taken more than a few steps though, before Morgan had suddenly stopped short and spun around.

"Kate!" He'd yelled back over to the startled Will, "what happened to Kate?! You said they went to the meeting together!"

Yes, once again . . . everyone had forgotten all about her. And once again Emily had felt a stab of genuine shame over that lapse. As, she had seen, Will had too. Because he'd winced right before he'd nodded, and said, "right, yes . . . Kate." And then he began filling in the details of how he had found her body.

And how she was already long gone by the time he got there.

It should be noted, that since his arrival at the hospital four plus hours ago, the moment when Will told him about Kate's death, that was the only time Emily had seen a real pool of tears in Morgan's eyes. But she'd known that he wasn't really crying for Kate herself, but more the last words that he'd said to her . . . they had not been kind. Sometimes though, that's just the way it is. The last thing you say to someone, really is the last thing you ever say to them. And then you have to live with it.

Emily was wondering how well Morgan was going to live with this one.

Not that he had actually done anything wrong. From the beginning, Kate had been just as combative with him, as he had been with her. They had simply disliked each other . . . it happens. But still, she was a colleague, and someone who they had spent a lot of time with that week. Some of them probably up to seventy hours at least.

And none of them could even remember to ask if she was ALIVE!

That was horrible! Just on a base level, it was horrible . . . and sad, and it made Emily think about her own life.

And how just a few months ago, she was probably a lot like Kate.

And given her own mixed feelings about this woman, that was not an easy admission to make. Emily could still see their similarities though. And she could see them without squinting much. They were both pushing towards forty while regularly working upwards of sixty hours a week in a thankless, violent, government job, with no real personal lives to speak of . . . and nobody to really miss them if they were gone. So of course Emily had had to wonder, if something had happened a couple months back, and she'd been killed in the line of duty . . . maybe that case in Connecticut, for instance . . . how much of an impact would that have really made on anyone else's life? Well, anyone besides her parents that is. They would have been devastated. And of course the members of her team would have been sad . . . she bit her lip . . . and Hotch would have felt guilty.

Because that was just who he was.

And that guilt might have stuck with him, but maybe not. Either way though, eventually she would have just become a blip in an inactive personnel folder. A picture on the wall.

Somebody who was a faint memory by next Christmas.

But now . . . Emily swallowed . . . things were different. Things had changed.

Connecticut had happened.

If not for that HORRENDOUS case, she and Hotch wouldn't have gotten together that night . . . her eyes started to burn . . . and they wouldn't have made their pact.

And she wouldn't fallen in love.

And even though they still needed to have their, 'big talk,' Emily was sure, sure in her bones, that whatever depth of feeling that she felt for Hotch, he felt the same for her. She was important to him. She mattered to him.

And he would be devastated if she was gone.

Feeling a sob of grief beginning to rise up as she pictured the happy life that would be taken from her if Hotch didn't make it out of that surgery, Emily quickly sucked in a shallow breath.

Just then she heard the screech of a chair scuffing across the floor. Her head snapped up.

And her watery eyes locked directly onto Rossi's.

Apparently he'd been staring at her, for God knew how long, and she hadn't even realized it. But now that she had . . . she just stared back. Her eyes wide and watery. Neither of them blinked, or mouthed a word.

Finally his gaze fell away.

Hers did too.

A slow sigh escaped from Emily's lips as she began to fidget in her chair, first crossing one leg . . . and then dropping it down to cross the other.

Then the door opened.

The nurse . . . Emily's eyes widened . . . oh Jesus, and the surgeon! She jumped up . . . everyone jumped up. But the older woman, still in her green scrubs, she put her hand out, palm up.

She stopped in the middle of the room.

"It would probably be best if everyone sits down again," she said softly, "because there were some," she tipped her head, "complications, during Agent's Hotchner's surgery. I'm sorry but," then she took a breath, "we're not sure how much longer he has. We need to contact his next of kin."

Hearing those grim, TERRIBLE words, for a moment the entire group stood frozen. And then once more Emily's gaze snapped over and locked onto Rossi's. And seeing the panic and grief in his eyes, just exacerbated hers tenfold.

OH JESUS! OH GOD! OH JESUS! OH GOD!

The mantra began spinning through her brain just as she felt the blood beginning to drain from her face. The last thing she saw was the scuff on that floor tile coming up to meet her face.

Then everything went black.

A/N 2: I liked keeping Faith and Bosco here to help Emily out. If you followed Third Watch, you'll know that Bosco did indeed get shot like ten times, including a bullet to the face, so he was pretty much half dead and came back again. That was a good story for Emily to hear. I also I felt that with the secret she was hiding, she would feel very disconnected from the others because she was in a very different place emotionally than the rest of them. And obviously Will was back with JJ, so she needed to have somebody just to sit with her.

And this was originally the last chapter on this story, though on the repost I did change up the last couple paragraphs up a bit. And I am VERY HAPPY to say that I now have a decent draft of the final chapter. I know I can wrap it in one, so hopefully I'll be back here within the next month. Please let me know what you think because we are a little low on feedback for this one :)

Thanks everyone!