Okay, I don't own anything to do with the perfection that is CM or any of its affiliations. I do, however, have the pleasure of owning my OC, Charlotte. Hope you enjoy the story - and have a great day!

Charlotte POV

Being unconscious is almost like having your head forcibly submerged under a heavy, thick layer of viscous liquid and being unable to work a way out of it. It filled my pours, my nose, eyes, ears and I couldn't breathe. A heavy weight pressed against my chest, and I wasn't able to even scream for help, because I couldn't necessarily feel my lips. No matter how hard I fought, or flailed or cried or shouted into the ether, nothing could be heard and I couldn't get away from the darkness. There was a consistently hefty pressure being pushed onto my chest, making it difficult for me to breath properly. It was more a metaphorical panic rather than a physical one, as I wasn't truly 'there' for it to be real, however that didn't stop it from being painful, in my consciousness. The gloom weighed down on my psyche and I tried to search for the energy to shove it away from me, but it was just so hard.

Every time I tried to fight against it, I found myself under immense, sharp slashing kind of pain and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer. I wanted to wake up, and see the bright lights of the sun, and just take a breath of fresh air, but it was difficult - it was so challenging to just return to my body completely and open my eyes when it felt like I was floating under a film of darkness. Why am I even doing this? I havent got a specific reason to wake up but it's like there's something out there, tugging at my subconscious, asking me, no, pleading with me to come back.

Even though I felt a deep unwelcome uproar inside my mind, whenever I, figuratively, gave up, I felt an immense sense of calm and relaxation, and it was almost addicting. Every single time my body was unable to keep up the constant rebellion, I noted that I felt ten times more light than I had beforehand. I needed to wake up, I knew I did, but there was something strangely calm being here - when I wasn't in mentally crippling pain, of course. In relation to my anatomy, I felt an invasive cool rush flood through the 'veins' in the 'wrist' and the cold, unforgiving abyss was back and I couldn't even catch my breath fast enough before I was absorbed by the dark.

*Approximately 60 hours later*

Rossi POV

I had been here for almost 3 days, and I was tired. Lord, I was tired, but I needed to stay here for Lewis' sake. I had been staying in the hotel room I had been allocated back when we first came over to New York for the serial family-killings, and I had found it to be a fairly comfortable living arrangement. It was only a few blocks from the hospital, easily within walking or cab distance, and Hotch had told me to alert him if anything were to occur, good or bad, with Lewis' condition. I had kept my word thus far, and texted him whenever her doctor, Michelle Schmitt, came and kept me informed, which, honestly, was few and far between. It wasn't nearly enough to sate my curiosity, but still, it was better than nothing.

During the day, when I wasn't with her, watching over her in her room, I was somewhere in the hospital or at the food court across the street. I swear, I had eaten more vender food in the last few days than I had in my entire life, and I was sick to death of it. The sooner she woke up, the sooner we could get the hell out of dodge and get back to the BAU, where we belonged. It was strange, growing fond of a girl I had only known for such a short amount of time, but I had done it. All of us had, as a matter of fact. I suspect a one Dr Reid has grown a little more than fond, if you know what I'm saying, but I keep my opinions to myself, and let the kids figure it out amongst themselves.

I had been on my way back from running a small errand, just buying a fresh bouquet of flowers for the lovely young nurse at the front desk, who seemed to be more and more interested in me as the days went by, when I had gotten a call. A call I really hadn't been expecting anytime soon. It was one of the doctors from the hospital. More specifically, however, it was Doctor Sinclair - the woman Hotch had specifically assigned to take care of Charlotte while she was in her care. My stomach dropped and a sombre, creeping feeling spread along my gut, and I felt like I should really sit down before I answered this call, which is what I did. Apathetically, I slid my finger across the touch pad, and held the device up to my ear, and smirked as I replied, "Hello, Doctor Sinclair, how can I help you?"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and I felt my pulse stutter in response, only to kick-start once more as she replied, "Charlotte's doing very well. In fact, she's coming along brilliantly. She's awake, and she's coherent enough for menial conversation. You can come in and ask her some questions, but do not, and I mean do not, put her under any kind of sudden duress, because we don't know how stable her condition is right now. Please, if you could hurry, she's fading in and out of consciousness, and I don't know how long she'll be lucid."

As soon as she told me Lewis was awake, I had jumped to my feet and was haul-assing it to the hospital, making it back in record time, and panting slightly from the force of the excursion. I walked past the receptionist with a suave, cool smirk on my face and she swooned, if only a bit, and went about clicking away on her keyboard, as per the request of her floor manager, who had been watching the exchange closely. I chuckled to myself as I made my way up in the elevator, and held my breath slightly as it dinged, indicating the second floor, and I went about finding the young detective's room. Instantly, I was hit with the sight of a bleary-eyed, disarrayed Charlotte, stretching lethargically in her hospital bed, her IVs jangling a little as she moved around. She flinched heavily and I immediately went to her side, checking over her visible stitches to see if any had torn or came loose. She glanced upward at me, shocked for a moment at my presence, before smiling, endearingly, and indicated at the paper cup of water, and I handed it to her, instantaneously.

Her voice was croaky and parched, and I handed her the glass of lukewarm water, and upon witnessing that her hands shook violently, I helped her along by manoeuvring her head and my hands so that she could drink peacefully. She smiled at me, and took a moment to collect her surroundings - and as she pieced her memories together, the grin began to fade away and morph into a scowl, a deep set, angry frown, and I could tell that she had remembered the encounter with Adams, a sore topic with us all at the BAU. She looked up at me, her sharp grey eyes twinkling noticeably in the cool, hospital room, and she asked, "He's gone for good right?"

I nodded, unable to speak for a moment, and she relaxed completely, her sickeningly green in hue, half-swollen bruised eyes shutting closed for a second and her mouth curving upwards in a smug, proud smirk, and whispered, "I made it."

-0-

"So what exactly are you thinking of doing, Rossi?," a fresh-faced, clean-clothed, showered Charlotte shuffled further up the lumpy hospital mattress. I turned to her, and asked, "What do you mean?"

She huffed, and rolled her eyes, however winced in pain at the action. The bruising to her face had gotten better, or worse, depending on your opinion. The skin was healing up, but she still couldn't smile, without her lip bleeding, although, honestly, there isn't any reason why she should be smiling right about now. While she had been unconscious, the bruising around her eyes had begun healing, and, even though they were obvious, you could see that her body was fighting back against the blemishes. Initially, all of the cuts on her body were bleeding, oozing incisions, some long, some thin, some shallow, and some fatal, however over the last week, they've cleared up some, and now, they only bleed when irritated somehow.

"I mean why are you still around? Don't you have a job back in Quantico?"

I nodded, biting into the burrito I had had to sneak into the squeaky clean hospital room, and replied, "Sure, but Hotch is worried about you, so you're stuck with me, bambina!"

She rolled her eyes, once more, apparently not learning from her past mistake, and winced, again, to which I frowned. I could see the anguish in her eyes, every single time she glanced into a reflective surface. She was disgusted with herself, and I was worried that she may react badly to the treatment that the hospital was hoping she would undergo. That bastard Captain, Stephenson, had been calling her non-stop these last few days, and I had to practically threaten him to actually get him to stop bothering her. He was a fucking idiot, if I ever saw one, and he made me sick.

"You okay, Rossi?," she asked, noticing my anger, and I shook it off, if only for the moment, and answered, "It's David, kiddo," to which, against her better judgement, called for the ghost of a smile to appear on her face, and honestly, it was a tiny step in the right direction, and that was good enough for me.