Derek came to a little while later, groaning as his body thumped painfully against the gurney he was strapped to. Blinking his eyes open, he saw the welcome sight of Hotch's face, and he gave him a tense smile as he struggled to sit up. "Sir, you need to stay still. While we've staunched the blood from your wound, the bullet is still in your arm, and I don't want that causing any more damage."

He nodded as he laid his body back down. "Hotch, what happened after you shot Curtis?"

"Chaos. Everyone converged on the room, and it took too long to get you out to the paramedics. Rossi will be riding with Erin to the hospital, while Reid controls the scene and takes care of all the cleanup. He'll join us with the SUV as soon as he can, but we needed to get you taken care of before we lost you."

"It's a shot to the arm, Hotch. It wasn't going to kill me."

"You heard the paramedic, the bullet is still inside you somewhere. I am not about to take a chance with your life. Not when it was such a stupid risk to enter that room the way we did. I had to walk out on a verbal tirade from Erin over what we decided to do, so I imagine that the moment she's released from care, she's going to find you and throttle you. And you'll deserve it."

Derek chuckled as he nodded, feeling suddenly exhausted. "Do you mind if I fall asleep for the rest of the ride?"

"That's fine. I have some calls that I need to make, anyway." Derek nodded as he closed his eyes once more and quickly fell asleep. The next thing that he was aware of was the feel of a familiar gaze staring at him. Opening his eyes, he found that he was staring up at the ceiling of a hospital room, realizing that he had managed to sleep through being put under for surgery, and he was on the mend. Turning his head to the right, he found his wife sitting in a chair next to him, an inscrutable look on her face. "Hey, Pretty Lady."

"Don't hey me, Derek! I am so fucking furious with you right now!"

He blanched a little at her choice in language, as she so rarely swore, and he hesitantly nodded. "I wanted to see your face again. Was that so wrong of me?"

"Yes! You knew he was a madman! What else were you expecting, other than to be shot? Thank the good Lord above that Aaron had his backup weapon still strapped to his ankle and was fast enough to pull it out and shoot the bastard before anyone else was shot by him. God, Derek, I love you so much, and I almost lost you!"

Tears began to pour from her eyes, and he struggled to sit up, hissing in pain as he jostled his bad arm. Finally, he was upright, and he reached his arm out to his wife. In a moment, she was standing up and coming to his side, burying her face in the crook of his neck as she sank down onto his bed, sobbing heavily. He stroked her back with his good arm and she shivered a little as she crawled further into his bed, as if she was trying to disappear into him. "I was banking on the fact that Hotch had his spare gun. If I was able to distract Curtis for long enough, Hotch would take him out. And he did. It was just a little gunshot."

"Little, my ass! You could have died! The bullet could have migrated and nicked an artery and then where would I have been? A widow with a baby on the way, and mourning her love." Erin snaked her arm up to caress his face, even though she never lifted her head from his shoulder. "I was so terrified, Derek. It froze me. John pulled a gun on Lexie, and then opened the backdoor, climbing in next to Jennifer. He held the gun to the back of her neck as he directed her where to go. I was hoping that Jennifer would pull her weapon and dispatch him, but it was too tight a space. John would have killed Lexie before she could have gotten the shot, and with the SUV moving so quickly, we would have died, too.

"Once Lexie began the long stretch of highway driving, he pulled out four sets of flexi-cuffs. He forced Jennifer to place one set around her ankles, and then another on her wrists before handing two over to me. I couldn't get my ankles restrained, since my bump is larger than Jennifer's, and it makes me less dexterous. He was strangely okay with that, since I couldn't do anything, couldn't answer my phone. I know that you tried to call me."

"We tried to call all of you. We would have been closer behind you, if Curtis hadn't used a GPS jammer which rendered even Penelope powerless. He messed up when he called us the second time, to taunt us about the picture he sent of you all to Rossi's phone. That was when Penelope was able to trace him to the house."

"I was certain we were all going to die. Derek?"

"Yes, Pretty Lady?"

"Would you be upset if I thought about retiring? I don't, I don't know if I'm strong enough to keep going with this job."

He began to stroke her back lightly, tugging on pieces of her hair absently when his fingers were close to them. "I would not be upset with you, no. But can I ask you something in return?"

She nodded before pressing her lips to the side of his neck. "Of course, darling."

Derek drew in a long breath as he tried to think about how to word his question so as not to further upset her, when she was already so traumatized. "I think that some of this is your trauma speaking. Personally, I think that you have a lot of good work left to do with the Bureau, and I would be sad to see you go. Do you think that we could ask the Director to give you an extended leave right now, and have your mom come over again to take care of you? I don't think that I'll be granted the same leave, since it really was just a flesh wound, and I can be out in the field by the time we return home."

Erin let out a watery little laugh as she shook her head. "Do you really want me to continue being a hard ass on your team?"

"Better the hard ass I know, than the hard ass we have no experience with." Awkwardly, he bent his head to press his lips to the crown of her head. "Would you think about that? Please?"

"For you, yes."

He gently squeezed her waist, letting out a long breath. "Thank you, Erin. You know that I just want the best for you, and I truly think that you would regret leaving us like this. You don't want to let Curtis chase you away from your job. You would regret that with every fiber of your soul."

"I hate that you know me so well, Derek." She let out a deep yawn before snuggling closer to him, her bump pressing firmly to his side. "I'm supposed to return to the family waiting room once I'm done haranguing you, but I don't want to move from this spot. Do you think that the nurse will yell at me if she finds me asleep next to you?"

"I'll explain to her if she tries to kick you out. You need the sleep now." She nodded as she wrapped her arm around his waist a little tighter, contorting her body so that she was pressed as close to him as possible. It didn't take long for her weight to become heavy on him, which told Derek that she had very quickly fallen asleep.

A few minutes later, the door to his room opened, and Hotch stepped in. "How are you feeling?"

"I think they gave me the good drugs, because the arm barely twinges. Erin told me that I was lucky the bullet didn't move, because it could have been worse."

Hotch nodded as he stepped over to the other side of Derek's bed, taking the seat there. "I can have the nurse show you the pictures, if you want. Erin was quite insistent that I saw them, since I hadn't stopped you from going into that room. My god, she's terrifying when she's faced with losing someone she loves."

"She's even more terrifying when she's tearing a strip out of your hide with her tongue," he said with a little laugh. "She was thinking about retiring. I talked her into thinking about it longer, because I think she'd regret a decision made in the heat of emotions. We were stupid, weren't we?"

Hotch chuckled as he nodded. "Yes, we were. Curtis could very easily have shot me before shooting you and the others."

"He would have had to reload. He got off five shots before we entered, and winged me with the sixth. He needed to reload."

"We didn't know that when we went in."

"True, but the odds were on our side." Derek looked down at Erin before looking back at Hotch. "How are the others doing? I'm assuming that Blake and JJ had already been released, too?"

Hotch nodded as he settled back in his seat. "They have, and JJ is on her way back home with Reid and Rossi. I thought that it might be a little easier on Erin and Blake if the rest of us travelled together. Even though it's a flesh wound, your doctor doesn't want you flying for at least two weeks, so we'll be taking the train home. Beth has agreed to let us stay with her tomorrow night, since you won't be released until tomorrow, and we'll travel home the morning after."

"Home sounds good right about now. I think I'm going to join Erin in sleep. This has taken more out of me than I thought it would. When you join Blake, would you have her call Marlene and ask her to come visit for a week or two? I have the feeling that Erin will need her Mama close at hand for a little while."

"I will do that, yes. Now get some rest, Derek. Tomorrow is going to be a long drive back to the city."

Derek nodded as Hotch stood up and stepped closer to the bed, reaching out to run his fingers through Erin's hair. There was a pained look on his face, and Derek knew that he was thinking of Haley. "We won this time."

"We did. I'm glad that finally, for once, we won. Take care of her, Derek."

"I intend to." Hotch gave a firm nod before striding from the room, closing the door behind him. "I came so close to breaking my promise, Erin," he murmured as he began to stroke her back once more. "I didn't do my best to protect you, I let you be captured by that madman, and you almost paid the ultimate price. I don't think I would have ever forgiven myself if you had died."

Erin groaned a little in her sleep, her lips pressing against his neck in a soft kiss. He took that as his cue to stop talking, and then he was pulling the blanket up around them a little tighter, wanting to keep her warm, even though it was the middle of May. "I love you, Erin Morgan," he dared to whisper before he snuggled down into the mattress a little more, making himself as comfortable as possible before tugging Erin into a more comfortable position as well. After pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to go to sleep, his whole world wrapped up in his arms.