Chapter 16

Hotch lifted his upper body and supported himself on his elbows. Rossi tried to push him back down, but Hotch struggled against him. He grabbed his shirt and Rossi could see the panic in his eyes. "Dave?"

"Calm down, Hotch."

"No Dave, what's going on?" he asked him frantically.

Rossi didn't know what was happening to his friend but it was scaring the shit out of him. "You were just hit by a car, Aaron. Calm down. Help will be here in a moment," Rossi tried explaining what happened to calm him down but it seemed to upset him more.

"A car?" Hotch finally noticed the car just a few feet from him.

Morgan made his way back and handed off their unsub to one of the local police. "Damn, Hotch! I know you don't know any fear, but tangling with a car? That's ballsy." Hotch looked at him like he didn't even know who he was. Hotch's breathing quickened. "Hotch?" Morgan asked getting concerned.

Hotch looked back to Rossi. "This is a joke right?" Hotch asked with a nervous chuckle.

"What?" Rossi asked him; he couldn't follow what Hotch was thinking and it scared him to think Hotch's mind was messed up even more. God, not something else! The poor man can't handle any more problems!

Hotch looked at Morgan and then back to Dave. "This is some sick joke, right? Well, it isn't funny!" Hotch yelled as he shook his head frantically.

"What are you talking about?" Morgan asked him as he knelt down beside his obviously distressed boss.

"I got knocked out and you all changed my clothes real quick and drug me out onto the street, right? I know you love your pranks, but you've gone too far!" Hotch told him as he tried to get up.

Rossi held him down, his chest was tightening. "This isn't a joke!"

Hotch looked at him and his eyes teared up. He looked at his surroundings a little more closely. "Oh, please, tell me this is a joke." He looked back at Dave and his tears fell down his cheeks. "Where's the container?"

"What container? Damn it, Aaron, you're scaring me!" Rossi told him as his fear started to gain momentum.

"You're scared?" Hotch looked around one more time and looked Dave in the eyes. "We're not even in Michigan are we?"

Oh shit! "You better lay back down, Aaron. Help's coming." As if on cue, the sirens from the ambulance could finally be heard.

"No, Dave! Tell me we're still in Michigan!" Hotch pleaded with him as he grabbed his arm.

"Oh, man!" Morgan said, and Hotch looked at him and he could tell they were definitely not where he thought they should be.

Rossi's heart sank at the look on Hotch's face. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Hotch took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Pushing you out of that damn container because I thought there was a bomb in it." He took another deep breath and opened his eyes to look at Dave again, and he knew there was a big problem with his answer. "I'm missing something, aren't I?"

Rossi pushed down on his chest with one hand and held his head with the other. "You need to lay still, Aaron," he told him and laid him back down on the street, and Hotch let him.

"I'm missing something! Tell me, Dave!" The look on Rossi's face scared him even more. "Please!"

Rossi took his hand away from Hotch's head and it was bloody. He wasn't sure he should tell him, but he couldn't ignore the pleading look Hotch was giving him. "The explosion in Michigan was over two months ago."

"What?!" Hotch tried to get up, but Rossi held him down. Hotch's breathing quickened even more and Rossi was afraid he'd start hyperventilating.

"Aaron, it'll be alright. You've hit your head again. . ."

"Again?"

"Please calm down," Rossi told him more forcibly.

Hotch nodded and started inhaling through his nose to try to slow his breathing. Two medics came running up and Rossi moved to allow them to get to Hotch.

"He was knocked unconscious, the back of his head is bleeding, and he's lost some memories," Rossi explained to the men. They started examining him. "He suffered a TBI two months ago that put him in a coma, too."

One of the medics looked at Rossi with concern and looked back at Hotch. "Is anything hurting?"

Shit! I was in a coma? "TBI?" He asked Rossi.

"Traumatic brain injury," the medic told him simply.

"Oh, God," Hotch closed his eyes and focused on his body. He opened his eyes and shook his head. "My side hurts a little, but nothing else." JJ came walking up and Morgan told her what had happened. When Hotch saw her tear up, he knew he was in trouble. Jesus! Two months? What the hell have I been doing for two months?

One of the medics tried to put a collar on Hotch and he pushed it away. "My neck's fine!"

"Hotch! Let them do their job! Damn it, relax!" Rossi told him.

Hotch held up his hands in defeat and let the men do what they wanted to him. If he couldn't remember two months' worth of days, maybe he wasn't fine.

Within minutes they had him loaded into the ambulance. Rossi rode with him and he held Hotch's hand on the way. Rossi was praying that Hotch would be alright, that there wasn't something else horribly wrong with him.

XXX

Rossi paced in the waiting room. I swear, Aaron, you're going to be the death of me! The rest of the team had shown up and they had all tried to get him to sit down, but he was too worked up with concern to be still. The doctors were taking forever and it was worrying him. Finally a doctor came out and gave them an update. "He has a couple of broken ribs, and a severe concussion." Rossi swallowed hard. "His MRI did show some swelling of his brain, but I believe that will go away on its own with a little time."

"He has memory loss. Will that go away, too?" Rossi asked him.

"That's hard to tell. This blow added onto top of his previous brain injury. . . We just don't know. Those memories may be gone forever, or he could start remembering any minute."

"I want to see him," Rossi told him forcibly.

"Of course. We are going to keep him over night for observations, so as soon as we get him settled into a room, I'll send a nurse to come get you," he told them and headed back into the main part of the ER.

Rossi sighed heavily and finally sank into a seat.

"He'll be fine, Dave," JJ told him as she put her arm around his shoulder.

"Yeah, it's not like he'll have lost anything important if he never remembers," Blake pointed out.

"As long as he doesn't get even scarier, he'll be good," Morgan told him.

Rossi nodded, but he was thinking the same thing. As long as it doesn't change Hotch even more. . . God, I won't be able to handle it if he's even stranger.

"Let's just make sure we don't make him mad," Reid told them.

They all nodded.

Within twenty minutes, a nurse came out to show them to Hotch's room. The team let Rossi go in alone so that he could judge what kind of mood Hotch was in. "Hey," Rossi told him with a smile as he walked in. His heart sank, though, when he saw the look on Hotch's face. It was the intensified Hotch stare.

"Not so loud," Hotch told him weakly as he put a hand on his forehead.

"What's wrong?" Rossi asked him with concern.

"My head is splitting open. Do me a favor and hit the light."

Not the headaches again. Rossi went back towards the door and shut off the overhead light. "That better?"

Hotch nodded and Rossi noticed that his face relaxed. "How else are you feeling?"

"My side hurts, but a couple broken ribs after getting hit by a car isn't too much to take, huh?" Rossi gave him a puzzled look. "What?"

"How are you emotionally?"

"Emotionally?

"Yeah."

Hotch gave him a puzzled look. "I've just been told that I've lost two months and that I may never get them back. I guess the closest thing I can say to describe what I'm feeling is confused. Is that alright, or am I supposed to be feeling something else?" Hotch couldn't figure out why Rossi was acting so weird.

"You're not mad?"

"Really, Dave? Like you've seen me mad so many times before."

Rossi raised his brows. Could it be? "So you don't feel any anger?"

"I'm going to if you don't tell me why you're acting like you don't even know me," Hotch told him as he started to get worried.

Rossi smiled. "Sorry. It's just that. . . Nothing. I'm just really glad you're ok. The team's here. Can they come in?"

Hotch gave him a questioning look. "Why would you even have to ask?"

"I just wanted to make sure your headache wasn't too bad," Rossi thought quickly.

"Are they going to come in here yelling?" Hotch asked with a smile.

"I'll tell them to keep it down," Rossi told him with a grin and left to go get them.

"So? How is he?" Morgan asked him.

"I'm not sure yet, but he doesn't seem mad. He said you all could come in, too," Rossi told them as he hid his excitement. He couldn't wait to see how Hotch acted with them.

"Are you sure?" JJ asked him as she remembered the last time they all visited him in the hospital.

Rossi nodded and turned to lead the way to Hotch's room.