I'm being extra generous...there have been three updates in the last day, so please don't skip the previous two chapters. I love it when I'm on a weekend role...and please don't forget to review them. I love reviews. :)

Emily Prentiss wasn't sure how long she had stayed there in the stall, hugging herself as her body was wracked with sobs that went on unabated. Why wouldn't the rest of the team step up to the plate? Hotch was supervising Reid's care, which was all well and good except that he hadn't been in to actually see him, Gideon was AWOL, and everyone else was too self-centered to realize that their 'baby' was at death's wide open door, which meant that it had been left to her to try to console him.

She had walked out of the ICU several times, convinced that the pain and heartache she was putting herself through wasn't helping him at all, that it was needless torture. But before long, she found herself going back each time as the thoughts of him lying in agonizing pain haunted her. How would it feel to be lying blind on a bed alone, trapped motionless in a body consumed with pain? Odds were that he was half dead and didn't feel anything. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing: the absence of pain would be good for him in the short term but not the long term. She wanted him to heal in the long term, but that felt like she was wishing torture on him. It was confusing enough to send her head in circles. Either way, those were odds that she couldn't risk. At least now she could safely leave him with Garcia, the most gentle soul of the group who had not made one move to upset him in the slightest.

With the sobs finally subsiding into dry heaves, she let herself out of the stall. She found herself wishing for her makeup bag as she took in her blotchy red face and puffy eyes. She ran a paper towel under warm water and washed her face. She looked slightly less deplorable, not that Reid would care.

"You want to borrow some?" a voice next to her asked, pushing a make-up bag in her direction.

"Yes, thank you!" Emily turned to the stranger as she began applying some eye make-up.

"You here for your husband? Boyfriend?" the petite stranger asked.

"What? No. Just a friend. Everyone else who came here to see him is being a jerk and it makes me sick, he deserves better. Thank you," she said, returning the cosmetics to the bag.

"You're welcome. Where are you going?"

"ICU."

"Damn."

"You said it, well good luck."

"You too."

The woman left, leaving Emily to soak her hands in cold water before she too left and prepared herself for another round of torture.

When she returned, it was to the sight of Garcia holding Reid's arm upright, his one hand clasped in both of hers, her chin resting on the fist. It was so sweet, and so terrifying. Damn.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Emily, what?"

Emily rushed to the other side of the bed, prying Garcia's hands away from Reid's. Apparently leaving him in Garcia's care had been a mistake after all. "Let go. Let go of him, Garcia! Nurse!"

But it wasn't the nurses who pulled back the curtain a moment later. It was Dr. Wilson...and if looks could kill...

"Jason, you can't be serious."

Aaron Hotchner's patience was on its last legs.

"I can't. I just can't."

They were sitting in Reid's former hospital room, sitting in chairs on either side of where the bed should have been."Reid named you as his medical proxy in his Advance Directive."

"I heard you!" Gideon spat, staring at his shoes. They were still caked in mud from the graveyard. "Those forms have two names on them! Give it to the other person! I can't do it."

"That someone else isn't here right now. You, however, are here and you need to respect Reid's wishes. He deserves that much and more!"

"I can't, I just can't."

"Can't or won't? Explain something to me, Jason Gideon. Everyone else on the team has helped in anyway that they could. Garcia sang to him last night, J.J. came to see him this morning. Emily...God, Emily even stayed with him while the doctor was giving him the epidural last night. She's gone above and beyond any and all expectations. She's still with him! Morgan, well Morgan tried to help. It backfired in a major way, but he tried. You? You left the ER while his condition was still critical and you only went to see him once for five minutes AFTER the second cardiac arrest..and then you do what? Go back to the Field Office? Why?"

"Reid's injury doesn't change the fact that there's still work to be done."

"Work that can WAIT! No one else is in danger of Hankel's 'justice'. The paper work can wait! Reid can't. He looks up to you more than any person on this team, so why won't you help him for the love of God?"

"Why? Because he deserves better, because...because how can I be his medical proxy when I got him killed?!" There was a fire in those old blue eyes that Hotch had never seen before.

"Gideon, you didn't hurt a hair on his head - and he isn't dead."

There was compassion in Hotch's voice. Too much compassion, compassion that he didn't deserve. "He was, for six minutes. I didn't have to touch him to hurt him, I..." He put his head in his hands and counted to 10. "I sent out the virus warning."

"I don't follow."

"After the murder was posted online, I... I didn't want him to think he had a pulpit so I, I asked Garcia to take it down. She said she couldn't and suggested sending out a virus warning so no one else would open the file."

Hotch's jaw dropped. "Let me get this straight, we had a sadistic unsub in a psychotic break holding Reid hostage and you thought it was a good idea to take away his control of the situation? How could you -?"

"I had to take away his pulpit."

"Why? What difference would it have made to give him a soap box to stand on for a few more days?"

"I didn't want people thinking that he had the right idea. If he had an accomplice, we'd have even more victims on our hands."

"We do have another victim on our hands - Reid! Reid's life was in danger, not some nameless stranger's. Our victims - our team - are our priorities. We don't borrow trouble. Besides, most of those website comments were of people who thought he was making a horror film! How -? How could you gamble with Reid's life so carelessly? First you call the press in the Garner case and now this?"

"You called the press?" a familiar feminine voice spoke up from the open doorway. They turned around, their suspicions being confirmed. It was Elle Greenaway, she was leaning on the door frame. You didn't need to be a profiler to detect her anger and disgust. "And here I thought Hotch was the idiot who got me shot."

"Elle, what are you doing here?" Hotch asked cautiously. The last thing they needed was a loose cannon.

"Garcia called me this morning and texted me this room number. So how badly did you screw up to make Garcia think that I was needed to help Reid?"

"How much did Garcia tell you?"

"An unsub grabbed Reid, held him for three days and he's in the hospital."

Hotch sighed, of course that's all she said. "Well that's the footnotes version."

"So what's full article, then?"

Elle pulled up a chair from the other side of the room and sat listening with her arms and legs crossed, her anger growing by the second. "Let me get this straight, Hotch. You sent J.J. and Reid, the two youngest most inexperienced agents right into the unsub's lair out in open country with no cell service to call for back up and you were actually surprised that they got hurt?"

"J.J. wasn't hurt, and it wasn't like that," Gideon spoke up, his eyes on his hands.

"Gideon, don't defend him! Hotch is -"

"What Hotch is or is not is not up for discussion. I'm just stating facts. We thought Hankel was a witness only, there was no need to expect danger."

"I thought the team's motto was 'expect the unexpected'."

"We got complacent. We want to make sure we don't let Reid down again."

"So where do I come in?"

Hotch leveled his eyes at her, she met his, assessing him just as much as he was assessing her.

He didn't like that Garcia had called her without consulting him, but he wasn't her boss anymore. He couldn't ban her from seeing Reid and maybe Garcia was on to something - after all she was the only person who had a clue as to what Reid was going through. She could be a huge help when - if- he woke up. Or she could be just the opposite."We need to know how we failed you - and we did fail you. You were right, we didn't have your back. We didn't have Reid's. We didn't learn. What we need right now, is a crash course."

"A crash course in what?"

"Victimology." Gideon's one word sent shivers down her back. "The study of victim behavior. We've dealt with victims before, but we ask them a few questions then give them back to their families. They are out of mind and out of sight. How to deal with them in the aftermath of a crime - it was something we had not needed to do before. And when we did, we dropped the ball. We can't afford to do that this time. Help us to help Reid."

"So you want me to help you profile Reid from a victimology stand point?"

"Yes."

"No," she insisted. "Victimology profiles go like this: thin, white male in his late twenties, single. Raised in Las Vegas and moved to Virginia to take a federal job. There's your victimology profile: physical appearance, job, marital status and geography. If you want to know how to help him, you have to know how he'll respond to certain situations and to do that, you need a complete profile. You need to prolife him like an unsub."

"Profile him like an unsub?" Hotch echoed, not liking where Elle was going with this.

"Tell me I'm wrong," Elle challenged. "We've seen unsubs crack under less pressure and you know it -"

"Like you cracked?"

"Hey, that bastard was asking for it, so I gave it to him."