I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
- Hippocratic Oath

*****

"Seizures, trouble breathing, chest pain, tachycardia," Hotch listed to the doctors, "This thing is moving too fast for us to get ahead of it. We need a diagnosis and fast or they will die..."

And then he hung up. He had no inclination to listen to anyone make excuses or try to tell him that things were going to be okay if they were just patient because he had been patient and things were most definitely not okay. They would phone back when they had an answer or not at all.

He didn't really have a spare moment to dwell on that though, because right away he was startled from his thoughts by a series of noises, a buzz signalling a door being unarmed, and the slow mechanical whirring of the ward's doors sliding back to allow someone admittance.

He turned sharply to see who had ignored the emergency procedures and wasn't at all surprised when he saw who it was. In fact, he was surprised that it had taken until now for him to break the rules. "Morgan, what are you doing here?" he asked nonetheless.

"I came to make things right," he said simply. He seemed about to brush past him, but he stopped himself. "Hotch, man, are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Your nose is bleeding..."

******

"Maybe we should work this from a different direction," Taub suggested.

"What do you mean?" Wilson asked.

"Well, we've been working this in the same way we would work any other diagnostic, but that's far too wide a spectrum. This has already been narrowed down for us, we should isolate our diagnoses to pathogens that are known to be or were being tested as bioweapons."

"He's right," Kutner said.

"No need to sound so surprised," Taub interrupted.

"We should also consider which specific ones are more easily accessible and weaponized," Kutner continued unfazed, "Anthrax, botulism, tularemia, Q fever, and staph EB are all diseases that have successfully been weaponized."

"It's not staph," Chase said, "The symptoms would be almost exclusively abdominal if that were the case."

"Botulism doesn't fit," Cameron added, "No muscle weakness in the face."

"Anthrax, tularemia, and Q fever all fit," Cuddy said.

"Start with Q fever," House said definitively.

"Are you sure?" Cuddy asked seriously, "Because we don't have time to be wrong."

******

Morgan stood hesitantly in the antechamber to the clean room, suddenly nervous now that he was actually about to go through with it. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer and his stomach felt like it was about to leap out of his mouth.

Would she still be mad? He had been such a jerk, he wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to speak to him again. But he had to try to make some kind of peace with her. He didn't want the last words he ever spoke to her to be ones of anger.

He took one last deep breath, shutting his eyes and steeling his nerves, then entered the clean room, not even bothering with the protective suit. Standing at her bedside, he quietly spoke, "Emily?" He waited for several seconds, but she didn't respond. "Emily?" he said again, this time gently placing his hand on her shoulder.

Slowly, she turned to look at him with a lost, frightened gaze, her eyes brimming with barely withheld tears. She tried to say something, but was hindered by the oxygen mask over her mouth and nose and the tube keeping her trachea open.

"You don't have to say anything," he said softly, "I came here to apologize." He reached out and took her hand in his, slowly tracing his thumb back and forth over her knuckles.

For a split second, he said nothing, suddenly feeling very unsure and awkward. He looked up momentarily to where Hotch lay, sleeping for probably the first time since the case had started, dried blood still stained his hospital gown; it was probably the weakest he had ever seen the unit chief. Then his gaze fell on Reid, still unconscious, barely hanging on.

That was all he needed to push past the discomfort; it had to be said and it had to be now... "I never meant to hurt you," he said suddenly, hoping that once the first words were out, everything else would just follow. "I know I was a complete jerk and you definitely didn't deserve to be treated like that. You were sad and frightened and vulnerable and I did nothing to help that. You just needed someone to listen, to care, and I guess I didn't take it well when I realized that that someone wasn't me. The truth is... The truth is, I over-reacted so badly because I was jealous. I was jealous that you had found comfort in someone else's arms."

He paused, looking intensely into her tear-filled eyes. He could tell that she knew what he was trying to say, but he needed to actually say the words, he needed it to be concrete, he needed to know for sure that she understood. "I love you..."

She shifted over in her bed, clearly indicating that she wanted him to lie down with her. He very carefully set himself down next to her, pulling her into his arms. Very gently, he used his thumb to smudge away the stray tears that had escaped to trickle down her cheeks. As she rested her head against his chest, he tenderly kissed the top of her head.

As they lay there in silence, her shallow breathing seemed to become all the more haunting. It was clear that they were both thinking that she might not have very much time left. Tears still ran slowly down her face.

"Don't cry," he whispered, "Everything will be okay."

Silently, he prayed those words would be true.