AN. I do not own Criminal Minds nor associated characters.
Thanks for the feedback on my first upload. This remains an exploratory piece of my own writing and my writing of the characters and I'm seeing where it goes. Also, I'm British - I don't know all the words for things like "operating room" instead of "theatre" as a reviewer pointed out, so you will have to bear with me, US friends!
Many thanks and enjoy.
Aaron anxiously awaits the awakening of Emily as she lies between the hospital sheets.
"She looks so small," Penelope murmured, tearfully, as she stood at the window, gazing into Emily's room. Aaron knew exactly what the analyst meant as he looked into the bed where his crumpled agent lay, dark hair messy on the white pillow, slender fingers lying upon the scratchy hospital blankets, hooked up to a multitude of imposing machines. At least the team were satisfied that their Emily was alive. Broken, but alive – and she would recover. Of this, Aaron had no doubt. Nothing could hold a determined and ambitious Emily Prentiss back.
"Who's staying?" Derek turned to his teammates with one black eyebrow raised.
"I am," announced Aaron without a second thought, not a moment's hesitation. "I'll let you all know the second she wakes up, but you need to go and get some sleep." To Derek in particular, he added, "that's an order." His imperious voice dared them to argue, but they did not. Instead, with a final look into the room of their fallen friend, a final glance at the machines surrounding her bed and a final glimpse of the brunette between the starchy sheets they dispersed, each of them going home to what Aaron knew would be a futile shot at slumber.
Aaron approached the door of Emily's room falteringly, pushing on the handle that would admit him to her grey-walled chamber, in the middle of which she lay asleep. He paused in the doorway, taking a moment to digest the sight before him. Aaron was not a weak man. He was famous for his unwavering austerity and professionalism, but he was far from detached. On the contrary, he was deeply personal. His team knew him to be fiercely devoted to each one of them, the unit and his job. In terms of dedication, the only rival to the BAU was that which he held for his beloved son, Jack. And so he faltered, unnerved by the helplessness and injury of one of the most resilient people Aaron had ever known – their rock.
"Hey, Prentiss," he murmured, dropping into the uncomfortable vinyl chair already at her bedside. Emily remained enveloped in deep sleep, as he had known she would, and he sat back in the chair, extending his legs beneath her bed in order to depress any budding cramp within them. His eyes slid shut and he once again heard the deafening shot that had floored Emily, heard Derek's cry – "She's hit! Agent down!" – And the volley of retaliatory bullets that had ended the life of her shooter just moments later. It had all happened in the blink of an eye. Aaron sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. If only Emily had been safely strapped into her vest – If only that attack had been on their terms, had not been a surprise, if only, if only, if only… The steady bleeping of the bedside machines brought him back to himself, to the bedside of his sleeping friend and agent and out of the haunting memory.
His gaze slid from her messy hair spread over the pillow, the shadows surrounding her eyes and her mouth, twisted into a slight frown as she slept, to her thin wrists resting upon the sheets and the IV in her hand. He could hardly believe this was Emily who, only yesterday, had playfully teased Spencer, who only yesterday had laughed with JJ and Penelope and shared a joke with Derek, a coffee with Dave and one of her smiles with Aaron.
He remained sitting at his agent's bedside, his head full of the machines' bleeping and Emily's shallow breathing, as she had once sat at his as he lay between those scratchy sheets with those machines hooked into him.
-o-
"Excuse me, Sir?" Aaron was numb in half-sleep, and dimly felt the nurse rocking his arm. "Miss Prentiss is starting to wake up." Sitting up slowly, he dragged his hand across his tired face, eyes reluctant to open and body loath to wake. He became aware of his aching limbs, his sore back as he arched it in the uncomfortable hospital chair. A hospital chair.
"Emily?" He mumbled, opening his tired eyes blearily.
"Sir," He once again felt the young nurse shake his arm gently, and finally focused his eyes upon the stirring agent beside him. He stood, suddenly awake, and gripped the side of her bed.
"Emily?" He said quietly, his gaze unfaltering as he stood eager to be nearby, to reassure her when she awoke, "It's Hotch." Stealing a glance at his watch, Aaron saw he had slept for almost an hour. Emily's fingertips twitched upon the sheets as she stirred, and her dark eyes fluttered open intermittently. Aaron waited patiently for her to become conscious, waited for those telling eyes to open and betray her muddled mind and for her brow to furrow in confusion, as he knew it would. Seconds later, brown orbs clouded with apprehension opened to the grey walled room on ITU and Aaron knew Emily was finally back with him.
-o-
Emily screwed up her tired eyes, blinking in the glare of lights above her. She registered the Unit Chief at her bedside and the machines at her head, announcing the steady rhythms of her heart to the room.
"What the hell?" She croaked, trying to sit up in the bed and finding herself too weak to do much more than prop herself up on an elbow. A doctor and a nurse were insisting she 'rest', pushing her gently back down into the pillows. "Hotch?" Emily scanned the space above her and her eyes once again made contact with those of her concerned supervisor; his anxious expression and haggard appearance were so out of character that for a moment Emily struggled not to laugh. "Hey, you've seen better nights' sleep." She grinned slyly, her eyes sliding shut in exhaustion.
"You can hardly talk," Aaron smiled without meaning to at Emily's cheeky jibe, raising an eyebrow in amusement, relieved that she seemed almost herself. "Do you remember what happened?" He asked in an attempt to regain his composure.
Emily bit her lower lip thoughtfully – another of her many habits – and Aaron knew she was revisiting the shooting in an attempt to remember the events of the evening. "I think I might have got shot," she eventually said, and Aaron admired the lack of emotion in her voice. "And I'm pretty sure I was in an ambulance. And now I'm here and everything's moving so – guess I'm doing okay!" Her voice was husky. She grinned once more, although the smile didn't register in her shadowed eyes. She even attempted a little laugh, to illustrate just how okay she was, and Aaron knew she was kidding no-one.
"You're going to be in here a few days, you took a bullet to the chest and it did some damage. You're lucky to be alive, Emily." The brunette rolled her eyes, sinking into the pillows a little more. Aaron recognised the tiredness in her voice and movements, but he also recognised Emily's determination to ignore her body.
"Where's everyone else?" She enquired, studying the ceiling above her as she tipped her head back into the pillows, as the doctor finally vacated the room and the nurse completed her obs.
"At home, asleep I hope. I promised them an update the second you woke up or they wouldn't have left." Emily smiled, shaking her head. "I'll get a text out and tell them you're back in the land of the living and already annoying your care team." The brunette smirked, raising her hands to pick at her nails impatiently.
"Tell them to bring in the files on my desk; if I'm stuck in here then-"
"No chance, no files. Magazines and board games only, Prentiss." And although his expression remained serious, although he remained their stoic Unit Chief, Emily saw a flash of amusement in his clever eyes and smiled to herself. "I'm going for coffee, try to sleep, please." With a last concerned glance into the face of Emily, Aaron Hotchner strode from the room, leaving the agent to sink sleepily into her hospital sheets, letting her eyes slide shut and allowing her exhaustion to overwhelm her.