"What kind of milkshake do you want?"

He's looking through the assignments his replacement at the elementary school has the kids doing. Replacement is a generous term- it's some fresh out of college kid that he thinks he might have met once but really only knows by association. The point is that his kids were writing their names and common words when he left them… what the fuck is this other kid doing wrong so that they're now struggling with their ABCs?

Being mad has good and properly distracted him from the rest of the week's plans. Their plans had slipped from his mind. The milkshake especially. Right, his chest floods with warmth, and his cheeks grow hot as he looks up to see if Dave's watching him. The older man had given him hell about his "little smiles" every time he gets a text from her.

"Vanilla," comes his quick response.

"Why are you smiling at your phone?"

Emily ducks as Morgan wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to his chest, trapping her. She wiggles and caves, going limp instead of fighting this futile fight. Leaning back against him she smiles down at her phone, "I'm leaving early tomorrow. Just making sure my plans are still in place."

He pulls her tighter, the two of them grappling for her phone. He wins the battle and his face splits into a mischievous grin. "Oh," he says, "you're talking to Aaron."

She pulls her phone back quickly, "yes. I'm talking to my neighbor." She pulls the phone back in and sends him a text confirming things. "He's in the hospital, Derek. I'm being neighborly." It's past that. She knows it. Derek knows it. Hell, the whole block knows it.

"Mmm," Derek hums, shaking his head. "Neighborly," he repeats with a smile. God, she's a mess. "And what would you say if I said I needed your emotional support tomorrow, princess? Would you leave me for this guy?"

She tries to fight past the heat pooling in her cheeks but can't. She wiggles out of his arms and firmly but without looking him in the eyes says, "I made plans, Derek. I don't like to break plans."

Morgan laughs. He throws his whole body back as he chest dances with his amusement. "You do like him!"

She's gone before

In the first week of taking the synthetic adrenaline, he does start to feel better. The wheezing and pressure start to go away and being in the hospital mean that he can manage his pain better. The food isn't as bad as he pretends it is but there's a whole roll of repercussions each time he can't finish the food they give him. The staff can't seem to understand that he wasn't eating a whole meal for breakfast each morning as a healthy adult man- let alone a dying one.

"Chin up, my boy!" Dave comes into the room unannounced. He kicks the door open and Hotch scowls from where he's still buried under his blankets. It's seven-thirty in the morning, visitor's hours haven't actually started, and not only has he not had anything to eat yet, but he's also exhausted. "Guess who's coming today?"

It's not as purposeful or dramatic as he'd like but Hotch turns over in the bed, putting his back to Dave. He pulls the blankets up over his head, grunting rather than engaging the older man in conversation. Hotch still has about half an hour, hopefully, to get a decent nap in before the nurse ratchet brings in the drugs and his day starts. And, besides, it's too early to deal with David Rossi.

Dave just keeps talking.

"Come on, take a guess. Don't be a killjoy."

Rolling back onto his back, head tilted back to look at the ceiling he grumbles, "I don't know. Who's coming?" His voice is thick with his aggravation and sleep-deprivation… it does not get better at the sight of the nurse making morning rounds that comes in a second later.

The room is silent as she works, Hotch's focus solely on her measuring out countless medications. Her hand is steady as she leads the needle into the port in his hand. He winces as she pushes the plunger down, the cold pain he's learned to associate with the concoction of pain meds, and whatever else they're always changing and telling him will "help". What he does know is that it hurts.

He has to turn his head as she prepares a second dosage of- whatever. This time, he clenches his teeth and the heart monitor above his head gives a little protest.

"Mr. Hotchner?"

Well, it's not supposed to feel like that.

He's fighting the fluttering feeling in his chest when the heart monitor really starts to go crazy. He can hear it. In the back of his mind, he's aware of the heart monitor but he can't breathe. Two hands- Dave- grab him by the collar and pull him upright. The change in position allows a momentary relief.

"Hurts," he wheezes out, chest impossibly tight. His eyes roll back into his head and he falls limply into Dave's chest.

He opens them a second later and he's on his back. He's shivering without his shirt to cover his goosebump covered chest. The entire room has been shuffled around.

It wasn't just a second.

There's a tube down his throat, he winces as he swallows around it- choking, even if he doesn't mean to. His chest is killing him and he can see them putting the defibrillator pads away. Oh, he thinks, fighting the exhaustion pulling him back down. He turns his head, looking to the other side of the bed for Dave.

He's standing on the other side of a large glass window. His hand anxiously moving through his goatee.

Hotch smiles around the tube and offers a shaky thumbs-up.

Dave sees it. He shakes his head and gives Hotch a thumbs up back. This kid is going to kill him.

It had taken the nurse a moment too long to understand what was happening. Hell, Dave only knew because he'd seen it happen so many times. He was up and out of his chair in a flash, grabbing Aaron by the collar of his shirt and pulling him upright.

For a moment, Dave could hear the difference in his breathing, and then Hotch's hand had grabbed on to the back of his shirt and held tight and Dave knew- "He's not breathing!"

He'd stood there by Aaron's bedside as they tubed him, Hotch's foot kicking out and the softest noise of protest leaving him as the cold metal had slid down his throat. Dave's eyes had teared up when they filled his lungs a moment later and Hotch's entire body just went limp.

It's hard to watch. It's infuriating that Dave can't do anything to protect Aaron from all of this but it's even worse when things like this happen. When Dave has to watch over and over as Aaron's body fails him.

Then to be ushered from the room as his heart starts to skip-beats, starts to give out. All for what?

For Aaron's shaky little thumbs up.

What happens when… Dave swallows thickly, his adam's apple bombing uncomfortably in his throat. What happens when, one day, Aaron doesn't give him that thumbs up?

When there's no "okay".

By Sunday, the day immediately following the one where she agrees to see Hotch in the upcoming week, she's added to a group chat. She picks up, quickly, that they have this sort of shaky schedule to make sure that Hotch isn't alone for too long. Of course, the complication is- Emily isn't sure she's earned her place in this little group.

When she enters the hospital she sees them immediately. With her worry lying with the milkshakes she's smuggling in, she carefully pins them in the tote bag she has- praying they don't tip over and spill in her bag. The distraction causes her to hear things she's not meant to.

"So…" Penelope's eyes swell with tears. She pulls her hand to her mouth, "so if there's a heart…"

Dave nods solemnly, "he's not going to get it."

Emily had told Morgan about coming to visit. He'd given her hell about her 'dying, hot ass neighbor'. Well… she supposes Morgan was a little too right, this time.

He's really… he's really dying.

"Emily!"

She pulls on a shaky smile, "Hey guys."

Dave pulls her in for a hug and maybe her mind is playing tricks on her but it feels like he holds her tighter. "Here to see Aaron?"

She doesn't want to nod. She doesn't want to say yes and end up seeing him however he is. It can't be good— this much she knows. No matter what, it can't be good.

Dave pats her back before releasing her. He cups her cheek before looking away and releasing her completely. "He's down the hall," he informs her with a nod of his head.

She doesn't want to go.

She falters in the doorway there for a second. He already looks dead. He's so pale and still hooked up to all the machines that it's alarming. It's… distressing and it's hard to see him like this even if… even if sick and dying is the only way she's ever known him.

What exactly would he look like healthy? She can't imagine him without his pale skin. He's a jogger though, he'd told her that. "If I get a new heart… I just want to jog again." And she'd told him she'd start running with him. They could stay in shape together…

That doesn't seem like it's going to happen now.

He moves, just a fraction of an inch as if he senses a presence and turns his head. His groggy eyes find her and when they do, he smiles around the tube. His throat hurts from the tube but it's better than the suffocating pressure of being unable to breathe. He manages to lift two fingers in a small wave.

She can hear his voice in her head and she smiles as she imagines what he'd grumble out if he were able. "I brought you the milkshake," she says, stepping into the room. Glancing over her shoulder she settles down in the visitor's chair and shows him.

He gives his head a little shake but stops when it pulls on his mouth too much. Instead, he smiles and she can see the way it pulls his entire face down with his exhaustion. "I bet you could really use this now, huh," she whispers, looking down at the milkshake in her hands. She's not in the mood for her own, that's for sure.

He taps the bed underneath his hand. It makes the softest sound but she looks up at him. He motions with his hand for something to write with.

"Uhm," she sucks in a breath through her teeth, looking through her bag. She's got paper but no- pen! "Here," she places the pen into his palm and smiles when he places it on the paper. Her heart is pounding, squirming with the chance to get back to their normal routines.

She leans closer, watching him scowl with concentration.

"You really want to know about work," she asks just before he's finished. She's assuming he won't mind the interruption given just how pissed he looks at his inability to produce neat, even letters on the page.

He raises an eyebrow.

"It wasn't bad," she defends. It doesn't cross her mind how she just knows what he's saying when he's not actually saying a thing. Could she do this with Derek having known him for years? Just a look from him has her shaking her head, "I'm not lying."

He raises both eyebrows and looks back down the paper.

She leans close again and- it's a good thing there's a machine doing most of the work for his poor lungs because his heart does this stupid little flipping thing when her hand moves his so she can see what he's written. And then she doesn't move her hand.

His heart can not handle that.

"You're pretty sassy for someone who can't run if I want to get back," she threatens playfully.

But he can't think past where their fingers are touching on the bed.

"Work is fine," she sighs, pulling her hand back to her lap. "It's a bit boring." She grimaces, "well, probably, not as boring as here."

It's boring as all hell here but he's tired of thinking about here. He's tired, barely holding on but he's more than willing to fight through the fog to stay here with her a little longer.

She laughs at what he writes: "Here has drugs, though".

Dave stops when he hears that sound. Laughter. He steps into the doorway and smiles at the scene before him. Despite the horrid sound of the hissing ventalior, they're both smiling. Emily's talking, her hands moving as she tells Aaron something about her day or… or maybe about drugs, if he's not mistaken?

But she's laughing and he's smiling and Dave feels hope.

Love, he thinks with a smile, comes at the oddest of times.