(Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or its characters)

Thanks for reading and reviewing the last chapter. I said I'd get this to you by Friday (praying it's Friday.)

Enjoy!

"He's not going to call." Morgan was watching Aaron who had his phone on the table, waiting for a call.

Morgan stood up from the hospital table, screwing up his sandwich wrapper as he straightened his back. He glanced at Hotch again who was looking down at his silent phone.

"Did you hear me?" Morgan asked and Aaron glanced up at him, his hand curling protectively around his phone.

"If you're not willing to work I suggest you take a break."

Morgan scoffed. "Work..." he muttered, looking at the phone and shaking his head. He stretched his arms out in front of him, tilting his neck side to side, waiting for it to crack.

"I will take a break," he said, pushing his chair in and moving away. "I'm going to see Reid."

Morgan looked at Hotch for another moment before he started to move away.

Aaron looked up and sighed, picking up his phone and standing from the table. He followed Morgan through the cafeteria and down the hall.

JJ was with Spencer, as was Sean who stubbornly wouldn't leave Spencer's side, something Aaron was glad of. Rossi and Emily were down at the station, talking to the victim's family, not that they needed any information on the victim.

Aaron was prolonging their time on the job. They weren't technically needed now they'd supplied the profile but he had his team working any way they could to stay on the case. He didn't even care that his personal connection to the case wasn't strictly allowed, Strauss had asked him already to step down but Aaron had convinced her that he needed to be on the case.

Aaron continued to follow Morgan as they went around the corner to Spencer's room. He hadn't spoken to Spencer since their argument and the interview. He hadn't had a chance to discuss the implications of what he had said. Rossi refused to listen to his plan.

"I wasn't being at all serious, Aaron."

"It's a good idea."

Rossi scoffed. "Holding your family up as bait? He has tried to kill Spencer twice."

"Which means he wants us. If he calls and he meets with us he'll stop killing."

"Because he'll kill all three of you instead!"

Aaron shrugged off the conversation like he had the first time. He looked up to see Morgan stopping outside of Spencer's door. He glanced back at Aaron. "Are you heading to the station?" he asked. Aaron shook his head.

"I'll come with you," he said and Morgan turned around to scowl at Hotch.

"I don't think you should."

Aaron frowned. "Why?"

"He's pretty upset with you, man."

"He's fine with Sean."

"Because Sean doesn't understand our job."

Aaron started walking toward the door but Morgan moved into his way. "Morgan."

"It's not good for him."

"You didn't tell him either."

"You told us not to."

Aaron scoffed and shook his head. He pointed at Morgan and said, "you were the one that didn't want to tell him about our father getting away. You told me it wasn't good for him!"

"You're forgetting that Spencer has been pretty forgiving so far. Right now he's had enough."

"Maybe it's not a good idea for you to go in there then, Morgan. You were just as cold towards him last week when you thought... when we thought he was lying."

"I didn't hit him!" Morgan stepped back, looking down the corridor to see if anyone had heard him shout. Aaron also moved away. He rubbed his chin and neck nervously.

Morgan took a deep breath and started speaking again though Aaron wasn't listening very well, his head felt stuffy, as if he'd been thrust under water. "Look, I'm not saying I was a saint. Christ I was awful and I regret that so much. I know you feel the same. And right now, if he'd asked not to see me, I wouldn't blame him."

Aaron looked up as Morgan's soft voice broke through to him. "He requested not to see me?" he asked. Morgan looked away awkwardly, moving his hand behind his neck and Aaron had his answer.

He nodded and stepped back again, putting distance between himself and the room. "Alright."

"He just needs time, man. He's trying to process all of this stuff."

Aaron nodded again but he wasn't really listening. "Make sure he's okay," he mumbled and he turned around and started walking back toward the cafeteria.

"I'm sorry, man!" Morgan called but Aaron didn't look back.

He turned and walked past the cafeteria. He pushed through the big front doors and, once outside, he gulped in big breaths of air.

He saw everything he'd done to Spencer and he hated himself. He wanted nothing more than to go back and embrace the young man when he claimed to be their brother. Aaron grit his teeth. He wouldn't let the moisture in his eyes overwhelm him.

As Aaron leaned back on the wall, holding everything in, his phone started to buzz. He looked down slowly and turned his phone. It lit up and Aaron saw a number he didn't recognise. His chest tightened, his eyes wide and terrified as he looked at the number ringing his phone.

Ed...

Spencer was so tired despite having slept most of his stay in the hospital. He felt bad for stifling yawns all the time, especially when Morgan came in to see him.

His exhaustion didn't go unnoticed and Morgan and JJ politely left, insisting he went back to sleep. And in all honesty, that's just what Spencer had hoped to do. He watched them go with a guilty grimace on his face but after a moment of feeling bad, he curled on his side and closed his eye.

Unfortunately, sleep didn't come. Spencer squeezed his eyes shut but he heard Morgan and JJ in the hall, explaining to Sean that he had gone to sleep. He heard the door open a pinch and the voices became clearer before it was shut again.

Spencer opened his eyes and listened to Sean talk to JJ for another few moments. Spencer closed his eyes again and lay there for several minutes, waiting for unconsciousness to bless him.

He was close to sleep, his mind drifting away to things Spencer couldn't remember thinking of, when another voice in the hall roused him. Spencer opened his eyes slowly when he heard Aaron.

Spencer couldn't hear JJ or Morgan's voices anymore. Instead he heard one similar to Aaron's but slightly less robotic. Sean, he thought after another few seconds of listening.

Spencer turned in his bed and squinted at the small window in his doorway. He saw Aaron's blurred sleeve moving across the window but he could barely make out their voices.

Spencer shifted, pushing his top half up off the bed. He narrowed his eyes, looking through the window where the shadows of his brothers were no longer visible.

He needed to get close to hear anything they were saying. Biting his lip, Spencer looked down at himself, his eyes slowly trailing down to the cast on his leg. He looked at the door again, the muffled voices still too quiet to hear.

Spencer moved his leg. Unsurprisingly, his leg barely moved, but Spencer was pleasantly surprised that the action didn't cause much pain. In fact, his leg felt like a dull throb, especially in comparison to the ripping agony he'd been in just a few days before. Spencer used his arms to manoeuvre himself to the edge of the bed, and then, carefully, he tugged his casted leg off the sheets. He winced when it landed against the side of the bed with a thud and he looked up at the door.

The noise hadn't stopped the conversation outside and Spencer pulled his other leg over, managing to stand on two feet for about half a second before he started to tilt.

He grabbed hold of the hospital table to keep himself up but the contraption moved with him. Spencer brought it to a stop quickly, slamming his good foot on the floor to get control. He breathed hard as relief flooded him. He thought about what might of happened if he'd fallen with the table.

He could see the shock on Aaron and Sean's faces and he could only imagine the pain of falling with a broken leg.

Spencer took a deep breath, forcing his mind away from injuring himself further. He shuffled away from the bed again and turned to direct himself toward the door when he felt a tug on his arm. He looked around and remembered his IV, which was struggling to make the stretch to him, pulling on the port in his hand. Spencer reached back and grabbed the metal stem holding up the bags draining slowly into his body. With IV in hand and the rolling table under his arm, Spencer wheeled to the door.

Finally there, Spencer let go of the table and fell lightly to the wall, making sure to be as quiet as he could. He moved his casted leg so he wouldn't fall over again, balancing mostly on one leg.

Spencer pressed his back to the wall, trying his best to even his breathing without being too loud. He shifted his head so his ear was close to the door.

He could hear Aaron clearer now.

"-said that?"

"Sean, this could be our only chance."

Spencer shifted his body closer to the door, straining his neck so he didn't have to move his leg. He focused hard on listening.

"He will call me and give me a place to meet."

"Is that safe? Shouldn't we tell your team?"

Spencer waited as Aaron paused. His hands clawed the wall beside the doors as the weight of what his brothers were discussing hit him.

"If he catches on to anyone else there he'll leave."

"They'll catch him."

Aaron sighed. "We haven't caught him yet and he was badly injured then. This could be our only chance."

"Are you sure this isn't you looking for revenge?"

"Maybe it is. If it doesn't work we'll use the entire department to find him. But we're his sons, we know him best and have the best chance."

Spencer pulled away from the wall. He stumbled back towards his bed on one leg, shaking his head and mumbling quietly to himself.

He turned, leaning heavily against the bed and looking back at the door where he could see the side of Aaron's face, blurred by the frosted glass.

He saw the shadows outside the door shift and he slung his good leg back onto the bed, heaving his body over until he was lay on his side again. He heard the door creaking open, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

He was not about to let his brothers do that. At least not alone.

Rossi and Emily were shaking their heads over the poorly constructed geographical profile up on the board.

"Why have they marked that car park?" Emily asked, stepping forward and pulling the pin out. Rossi was about to stop her but it was too late. With the pin, down came the red string connecting all the other pins together.

Emily looked at the pin in her hand and sighed, dropping it on the table, pulling the rest of the pins and strings with its

She glanced at Rossi with an awkward smile. "We need to redo it anyway."

Rossi shook his head. "Don't bother. We have him profiled already. He kills out of opportunity, we won't be able to track him accurately."

Someone banged into the wall on their way past the conference room and Emily looked over at the windows. "They're busy again," she muttered. She glanced at Rossi. "You don't think something else has happened?"

Rossi pulled the last pin from the map before he looked around. "Let's find out," he said, leading the way to the door.

Rossi waited in the doorway for a female officer to pass, she glanced around and smiled in thanks before hurrying along to the sheriff's office.

Emily came to Rossi's side and she pointed to one of the desks where several officers were huddled. "I'll check it out," she said, moving quickly through the officers wading in and out.

She got to the desk and leaned over it, scanning the files opened to the other officers gazing down. Rossi watched as she spoke and an older man handed her some paperwork. He spoke directly to her and Rossi saw the way her expression changed. She scowled and looked down at the paper he had given her.

Rossi glanced back into the conference room, wondering if he should call some of the others back. He knew Penelope was catching some sleep back at the hotel but he could use her expertise. He could get her to look through any recent motel checkins since that seemed to be Ed's go to.

"Rossi!"

Dave turned at Emily's shout, searching the faces of the busy police officers before finding Emily again, two desks over from where she was before. Her eyes were wide as she held up a report, her fingers shaking as she kept it up, making the paper tremble.

"He's killed again," she said. Rossi paused in making his over to her, his own eyes wide. Emily closed the gap between them and she handed over the report.

Rossi looked down but Emily filled him in before he had chance to read. "Three of them," she whispered. "He killed three men."

Rossi looked up slowly, staring at Emily with round, wide eyes.

"Are they..." Rossi swallowed, looking down at the report and scanning over the descriptions of the victims.

Emily looked down too.

"They're surrogates," Rossi said quietly.

"For Aaron? Or Spencer?"

"All three of them."

Thanks for reading.

I can't believe I'm on time again! Finally!

See you soon, stay safe.