JJ walked into Gideon's office, hoping that he would be there. It had been two weeks - two weeks since Gideon had taken time off, and two weeks since Hotch had been put on suspension. They were both supposed to be back today, but so far no one had seen either of them.

Instead of finding the older profiler, though, she found the younger doctor, asleep in a chair.

"Reid?" she asked, and he looked up at her, still half asleep. "What're you doing here?"

"Uh…" he seemed to realize where he was, and then checked his watch. "Gideon didn't answer his phone." he said, his eyes still half-closed in sleep. "I called him twice."

JJ fixed her hold on the folders that she had tucked under her arm, giving him a second to compose himself. "Have you been here all night?" she asked him awkwardly. She loved the young man like a younger brother, she really did. But sometimes he did things that even she couldn't understand.

He nodded. "We were supposed to play chess."

"Here?"

"Yeah." he said, tucking his hair back behind his ears. "He hasn't been back to his apartment since, um…" he trailed off, but JJ nodded.

"Right." she said. "And what about you? Have you gone back to your place since…" she trailed off as well - it seemed that neither of them were very good at just putting things out in the open.

"Yeah. Yeah, a few times."

She didn't look like she believed him, but decided not to press the issue. "Well, I'm about to brief the team, so…"

He got up out of the chair, silently glad that he hadn't managed to get a stiff neck from sleeping in it all night. "I'll be right there." he said. "Just let me grab some coffee."

8888

The team was clearing out Gideon's office when Section Chief Strauss went up to Hotch's office. There were a few minutes where they tried to figure out what the two were talking about - judging by the fact that Strauss was there at all. As soon as she left the bullpen, Hotch was calling for Reid.

The young doctor looked terrified for a second before he listened to Hotch and headed up to his office.

"Sit down, Reid." the older man requested as the man in question hovered in the doorway. Spencer did as told, and then they just looked at each other for a minute before anything else was said.

"How're you holding up?" Hotch asked.

"I'm sorry?"

Hotch gave him one of his famous looks. "Reid, your wife is in the hospital in a coma. Your pregnant wife. And now Gideon left. So I'll ask you again - how're you holding up?"

Reid slumped down in the chair, and allowed his worries to just pour out of him for the first time in weeks. "We were looking at houses." was the first thing he said. "Ariel thought that our apartment was too small for a growing family, and so we started looking. And now…" he cut himself off with an almost hysterical laugh. "Now, everytime I close my eyes, I worry that I won't have a family when I open them again."

Hotch didn't say anything for several minutes - because really, what could he have said. "Things will get better." was all that he could come up with.

"How's Haley?" the younger man asked, and Hotch felt his carefully constructed mask slip for a second at the mention of his wife. "That bad?"

Hotch contemplated his options - he could lie and say that everything was perfect, or he could come clean. The two men had bonded a lot, being the only married ones on the team, along with Reid needing someone to talk to after the Hankel incident.

"She wants a divorce." he finally revealed, and judging by his expression, Reid was as shocked by the information as Hotch had been when she had first brought it up.

"What?" he asked. "Why?"

Hotch was about to explain it all when there was a knock on the door, and JJ popped her head in. "Hey, we've got a case." she said, and both men stood up.

"All work and no play…" Reid quipped, and for a moment Hotch was afraid that their little talk hadn't done any good. Then he saw the faint hint of a smile on the young genius's face, and he knew that things would truly get better.

All they needed was time.

A/N~ I'm so sorry, this chapter was really short - I've been super busy lately. I might end up posting another chapter at some point this week to make up for it - let me know if you approve!

Thank you to ahowell1993 (yes, they all know now), tannerose5 (don't worry, I won't! I wouldn't even dream of abandoning it - I was just saying I don't know how many more chapters there will be until this story is completed. There might even be a sequel!), Momochan77, and ripon (he didn't want to, I can tell you that. But it's not like he can take too much time off of work - the team needs their boy genius!)