Finale Fix

BONUS PROMPT: Surprise (Buffy)

CHAPTER SIX

I Need You to Fight, Okay?

To Emily, time became an irrelevant measurement. She wasn't sure how long she cried, how long she'd been sitting beside his prone, unresponsive body, sobbing. What she did know was that it had been cathartic. It didn't erase the things in her mind, but it felt better to release the stress of the unknown. He wasn't out of the woods, because of the surgery and recuperation and because they had yet to pinpoint, let alone find, the shooter, but she felt better knowing that if he had something to fight for, he'd be back.

And she knew he had so much to fight for. He may have lost his wife over a year ago, but he had his own version of family. He'd handpicked most of his BAU team and they looked up to him, he knew that. He had to know that. Reid still looked at him as a sort of father figure, Dave too, but Hotch was the stability in his life since Gideon had left. And Derek more than respected him. Emily wasn't sure how Derek would react if Hotch didn't come out of this, but she did know it wouldn't be good.

Hotch was, in the work sphere, Dave's other half. Hotch was the one that was the rationality to Dave's more traditional approaches to profiling and it had been Hotch that had asked them all to give Dave a chance to get used to the way things were run. Dave had been used to a different kind of BAU and Emily had noticed how much of the stress of breaking Dave in that Hotch had taken on his shoulders.

Hotch and Penelope had their disagreements, that was no secret. There were times he forgot that she wasn't a profiler, that she dug into people's lives electronically, not behaviourally. She didn't like dissecting every tidbit and secret about people. She looked up concrete, factual information and let the team interpret it as they thought was correct. But Emily also knew that Hotch appreciated everything she did more than the blond probably really realized. Hotch wasn't immune to how important Penelope was to what they did and he wasn't blind to how much she, as a person, made them a better team. She was their bright spot. Emily had found herself wondering a time or two if Penelope realized just how many times she'd managed to crack a case for them.

But no one would take Hotch's inability to recover like JJ would. There was a bond between JJ and Hotch, one that Emily had seen and Hotch had alluded to once or twice. JJ was like his little sister, a woman who he recognized was strong in her own right, but every once in a while needed that extra bit of encouragement. And Emily knew they worked closer than the rest of the team did. They had to, as supervisor and communications coordinator. And Emily knew JJ saw Hotch in the same light.

They all did, there was no doubt about that. Superman was their rock, the glue that often times Emily felt really held the team together. He was invincible and he was all-knowing. There were very few things that managed to escape his ever-present eye, even when he was in his office and the rest of them were in the conference room. He just seemed to have a knack.

Which was why it was so incredibly painful to see him just lying there, prone, tubes attached to him, pumping him full of the drugs that would keep him dead to the world and the nourishment he'd need to heal.

Emily took a deep breath.

"Aaron, it's Emily..."

God, even in Dream World it hurt like hell to be shot.

And apparently Dream World wasn't immune to nightmares either.

But it had helped. He was now aware that he was in Dream World to begin with, that things around him weren't real. He'd been pretty sure of it before, but now, he was definitely positive. It made him feel a little bit better, knowing that Emily was probably okay. He hadn't heard crying when he'd woken from being shot for the second time, but he wasn't sure how long he'd been out either. How long had she cried?

The knowledge and memory of what happened had him logically deducing a few things: one, he was most definitely in a hospital. Well, his body was. His brain still seemed to be in some happy meadow with purple bunnies. And try as he might, those damn bunnies wouldn't turn black, brown or white, no matter how hard he wished it. Apparently Dream World had its own set of rules.

Two, he would have gone through some sort of surgery. It pained him to think of his team going through the same thing they had following Garcia's shooting. He wasn't supposed to get short. Then again, he shouldn't have to clear his apartment upon coming home from the worst case he'd faced in a long time. Well, worst non-personally affecting case, anyway. They'd all suffered in Canada, each of them reacting violently to the things they saw.

Three, he wasn't dead. He had a good gut feeling that he wouldn't be able to hear Emily if he was dead, and he'd probably be having more of an out of body experience than he was now. He doubted wherever he was meant to go after death had purple bunnies in it. That just didn't seem the logical style. Which meant one very important thing:

He could still fight.

And upon waking up, he'd decided he had too much to fight for. Spencer still needed a father figure. Dave still needed to be reigned in from time to time. Derek still needed a mentor, someone to be an example on leading a team because one day – and Hotch had no doubt it would be one day soon – Derek would be leaving to run his own team. JJ needed the stability, a person who knew the job and knew the kind of things that would go through her mind looking at picture after picture of dead women, more often than not. Jack was a no-brainer and one of his top two reasons to fight to see him again.

The other.... Emily... well, if he was honest, he wasn't quite sure what Emily needed. He knew she needed his friendship. That was something they'd proven time and time again, but he needed hers just as badly. Since New York, since they'd grown closer, he could always rely on her to crack a joke, make a sarcastic observation or do something endlessly sweet to remind him that there were good, happy things in the world. He didn't think she even realized how much he'd come to rely on her uncanny ability to just be normal no matter what they saw, no matter what they had to do.

She'd be broken by his death, that much he was sure of. She'd probably even be broken if he had to stay in a coma for the rest of his life. Not to mention that he didn't really have time to be in a coma. He needed to get out of Dream World. He needed to warn Derek that Foyet was back. He needed to protect Emily.

His brow wrinkled. Why did he need to protect Emily? She's proven time and time again that she was more than capable of taking care of herself and she actually enjoyed pointing it out to him more often than not. She enjoyed bragging when she managed to do something better than he could and she took great pride in being able to teach him anything new. Emily didn't need protection, yet he wanted to wrap her in his arms and take her away from the George Foyet's of the world.

It wasn't the first time the protective instinct had reared it's ugly head when it came to Emily, but it was the first time he'd given it more than a passing thought. Since he figured there was a good reason he hadn't woken up yet, he'd plopped himself down in the middle of the meadow, only a few feet from where he'd woken. Foyet was gone, not a trace of him in sight, and Hotch had vaguely wondered if this Dream World brought his nightmares to life too.

"Aaron."

There was her voice again, and he perked up without realizing it, straining to try and figure out where it was coming from.

"It's Emily."

Well he knew that. Okay, he couldn't pinpoint a place where she was coming from so maybe... Maybe she wasn't here. God, it was still definitely difficult to get over the surreal nature of a Dream World.

She sniffled. "The doctors said you could hear me if I talked to you but... I can't say I know what I'm supposed to talk about."

He didn't care what she wanted to talk about. It was just good to hear her voice. It was always good to hear her voice.

"I don't want to bog you down with the team. We're... we're holding in there. Apparently you were on the verge of losing too much blood and they couldn't find any for you... We fixed that problem though, and yet..."

Her voice was choking up and he knew that meant tears. His eyes fluttered closed, his head tilting forward to rest on his bent knees. This was killing him. She wasn't supposed to be in this much pain. He was alive, wasn't he?

"Um... they said you were going to make it, if your body could heal just a little bit more. They want to keep you in a coma for a few days, just as an extra precaution, but the doctor said that eventually, you could probably even return to the Bureau. But it's going to take some time. You're not going to be able to go back tomorrow and I doubt any of us are prepared to make the same mistake letting you back into the field like we did after New York. And let's face it, Dave has more pull than you do."

He wished she could see him laughing. He was glad she was trying to be normal, even though he could hear the tears in her voice,

"God, Aaron, you scared us all to death. You're not supposed to be the one that gets shot, one of us is! That way you can tell us everything is going to be okay! We're not holding up so good out here."

He heard her take a deep, shuddering breath.

"I'm not doing so good out here. I need you to wake up when they stop pumping so much of the narcotics through your system because I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with myself if you don't wake up and if you don't recover. I know you're already going to fight because you have a son to get back to, but just in case, I need you to fight okay? If Jack's not enough, then for me. Because I need you in my life and I didn't realize how much until I thought you were gone."

As if he didn't already have enough incentive.

So, as you can see, I finally decided what prompt I want to use for this Finale Fix. I kept puzzling and puzzling over it and that's why I didn't go and put it up or anything. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it and how many prompts it would fit. Having said that, as I'm sure you can see, the "Surprise" is two-fold. One is that Hotch got shot, and I'm not 'fixing' it so much as making sure he stays alive. The other, of course, is Cami.

Now, before you all look at me funny, I have it on good authority that there is a post-surgery cocktail of glorious drugs that literally makes you see purple bunnies. As in, I've had friends who have been on it. I can't remember what it's made out of and really, they probably wouldn't use it for a gunshot victim (my friends have all gone in for surgery for CP) but I thought it was a hilarious analogy considering I've kind of sent Hotch into this surreal sci-fi dream universe.

Not quite the Emily introspection I was aiming for, but the poor woman had to be told she was in love with the man, I figure we can give her a little while until she says it. Maybe not when he's in a drug-induced coma and just sleeping.

Actually, I kind of like that idea...