When the Levee Breaks
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do.
Confucius
TWENTY
She awoke in a hospital bed, blinking rapidly. The entire team was standing around her, looking about as bad as she felt.
She tested out her tongue. 'Did Garcia hack a florist's computer, or something?' The sheer amount of plant-life in the room was astonishing. If it weren't for the IV and the monitors, she could have sworn she was stuck in some crazy, hallucinogen induced dream.
'We think so,' admitted Hotch, nudging aside the large fern that took up most of the table that he was sitting on.
'How're you feeling?' asked JJ, a little guiltily, adding, 'You got out of surgery about three hours ago.'
'I'm fine,' said Emily, after a few moments' pause.
'Girl, you're in a room full of profilers,' Morgan responded, though it was not without some amusement.
'And I'm not blind either,' she reasoned. 'You've all got bags under your eyes, and two days worth of stubble. Take care of yourselves before you start worrying about me.'
No-one even thought about leaving. 'We're your friends,' persisted Reid. 'We're allowed to care.'
'Well fortunately for you, I've got a shitload of morphine that's doing a pretty good job of dulling the pain.' She hesitated looking at each of them in turn. 'But I guess they'll stop giving it to me eventually, so...I guess I wouldn't mind if you stuck around.'
Them being, as Morgan had said, a room full of profilers, they understood her roundabout way of appreciating their presence. She was still stubborn enough to not ask for it directly, though.
'We finally got through to your mother,' Hotch said conversationally, though he knew he was broaching a topic that was anything but. Emily said nothing, so he continued. 'She's flying in to Washington on Wednesday.
'I'll be out of hospital by then?' asked Emily hopefully.
'We'll know when you do.' Rossi nodded to the door, where a white coated doctor was standing. He seemed reluctant to come in, somewhat intimidated by the occupants of the room.
'It's alright,' Emily told him. 'They don't bite.'
He gave her a look, and asked, 'Do you want them here for this?'
'They're fine,' she assured him.
He nodded, and rattled off a list of the injuries she had sustained, most of which were unsurprising. They amounted to a broken arm, a few broken ribs, a gunshot wound, second-degree electrical burns, a bruised larynx, and various other cuts and bruises, few of which she could not consciously remember receiving.
'...and no signs of sexual assault,' he concluded. The team breathed a sigh of relief; it had not occurred with any of the previous victims, but the BAU had an uncanny predisposition to assume the worst.
'I would recommend psychiatric treatment. Often the effects of torture leave far greater mental scars than physical ones.' Emily went to great lengths to keep her face blank. She nodded at this suggestion, and assured him that she would visit a psychiatrist at the earliest available opportunity.
She asked when she would be able to leave the hospital.
'The day after tomorrow,' he assured her. She nodded again. If she could endure two days of torture, then she could last two days in a hospital.
She had, of course, underestimated her threshold for boredom. There was nothing to really do in a hospital room, save for flicking through the TV channels. They didn't even have cable. With one arm in a cast, and the other increasingly numb, she found it difficult to turn the pages of her book.
'Want me to read to you?' Morgan was standing at the door, his own arm in a sling.
'Shouldn't you be finishing up the case?' she frowned, letting the book close over her fingers.
'Well technically speaking, I need to be cleared for duty. Even clean-up.' He sat on the chair beside the bed, and picked up the book she had been attempting to read. 'Catch-22. Where are you up to?'
'Chapter twenty-three,' she said blankly, her eyes glazing over. He noticed this almost insignificant act, and put a hand on the bed.
'Hey, are you alright?'
She looked him in the eye. 'No,' she said. 'But I will be.'
He read to her until her eyelids had drifted shut, and she began to sleep.
A/N: Okay. That's the final main chapter. There will be an epilogue. There may be that sequel I talked of. There may be a threequel. We shall see.