A/N: Hope you've got the tissues ready.


Emily felt like her eyes were going to fall out of her head as she sat on the floor outside the surgical waiting room, her back pressed rigidly to the wall. She was exhausted, but at the same time, her mind was wired, running a million miles an hour through the events of the last 12 hours. Luke had come through surgery with flying colours and was now resting upstairs on the ward. But now, the agonising wait to hear how JJ's condition would fare was on. The blonde had already been in surgery for over an hour, and even though the nurses were keeping her regularly updated, every minute that ticked by was the most gut wrenching of her life.

A coffee cup hovered into her view, making her look up from her blank stare at the opposite wall. Above her, she found Rossi, looking just as haggard as she felt. He'd clearly come straight from the scene of the bomb; dirt lingered on his trousers, and the faint smell of explosives was clinging to his body.

"If I have any more coffee, I'm going to vibrate for the next two days," she said flatly, reverting her stare back to the blank wall ahead of her.

"Yeah, but you look like hell. Seriously," Rossi replied, nudging the coffee towards her, "just drink it"

Begrudgingly, she took it from his hand, clutching it to her chest as Rossi slowly came to sit beside her.

"Did you find anything?" she asked, wanting to keep the conversation away from JJ's condition for as long as possible. She needed to distract herself, to take her mind to any other subject. She needed to think of anything other than the image of JJ's face as she realised the full extent of the damage that was now burned into the back of her brain.

"Tyre tracks. Footprints. The usual. Someone was definitely out there with them. And I bet it was this sick fuckhead Sicarius. Or Reeves. Probably both of them"

"Anything in the container?"

"Nothing that wasn't chewed up completely by the explosion," Rossi replied with a sigh. "I've got all the notes back at the field office, more importantly, right now, how are JJ and Luke?"

Emily swallowed hard, avoiding his gaze. "Luke… has shrapnel wounds. A couple of burns, fractured ribs. A nasty head injury. But he's ok. He's been into surgery to have the shrapnel cleared and the burns cleaned and dressed… he's upstairs now. Should be able to walk out of here in a few days"

There was a short pause as Rossi waited for her to continue speaking. But Emily couldn't find it in her to force the words out of her mouth.

After a tense silence between the two, the older man finally spoke up. "And… JJ?"

Almost immediately, Emily lost the last shred of composure she had been holding on to. Her face crumpled, the tears spilling down her cheeks with surprising vigour as Rossi stared at her in shock.

"She's paralysed, Dave," she sobbed, the gravity of her friend's condition suddenly settling on her as she spoke it out loud. "Somehow, her neck fractured in the explosion, and it damaged her spinal cord. She can't feel anything below her shoulders"

"Are you fucking serious?" Rossi asked in disbelief, his face written all over with horror. "What the… no. There's no way. Where is she now?"

"She's in surgery. The neurosurgeon saw the tiniest bit of movement in her right foot and took her straight in for decompression surgery. If it's successful, she has a chance for rehabilitation, but... she'll never make a complete recovery," Emily said, her voice weak and thick with tears.

"Holy shit," Rossi breathed, falling back against the wall. "Do Tara and Garcia know?"

Emily shook her head, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. "I haven't even told Will. I've called him and told him to haul ass down here, but I didn't tell him why. I just told him that JJ was in the hospital. I couldn't... I couldn't tell him over the phone, Dave, I just couldn't do that to him"

"You did the right thing," Rossi said shakily. "The last thing we need is him having an accident or something on his way here because he's upset"

"I should never have sent them there," Emily said in a distraught whisper. "I knew something was off"

"You couldn't have known something like this was going to happen," Rossi reminded her gently.

"But I knew as soon as I found out that Benjamin Reeve was in Whitfield County that something wasn't right. I should have made them wait for backup, or… sent in the bomb squad first"

"Emily, that would have required you to know there was a bomb in there in the first place. We didn't know. None of us knew. As far as we were aware, JJ and Luke were walking into an abandoned shipping container… you cannot blame yourself for this"

"Our friend is paralysed," Emily snapped, tears still running down her cheeks as she gestured towards the doors of the surgical suites. "Because of a decision I made"

"Emily," Rossi said softly. "JJ's as tough as they come. Sure, it might look like shit now… but if the doctors say there is a chance for rehabilitation, you know JJ is sure as hell going to take every opportunity for improvement that comes her way"

But Emily couldn't fathom another word of reassurance. Setting the coffee cup down beside her, she buried her face into her hands, overcome with devastation and heartache as Rossi put an arm around her shoulders and tried to bring her a sliver of comfort, all the while trying to wrap his brain around everything that had occurred in such a short space of time.


"I was just gonna... say... I love you. That's all. I'll, uh… I'll talk to you in a little bit. Bye"

That stupid fucking voicemail.

When Emily had called to say there had been an incident in the field and JJ was in the hospital, he hadn't even listened to JJ's message yet. But as soon as he hung up, he noticed the missed call from his wife.

He'd hoped that it would be what they promised; a heads up of what she was walking into. But as soon as he heard the pause, the hesitation in her voice, his hopes had fallen. He should have known. Part of him wanted to be furious with her. They'd promised, after all. But he also knew his wife. She was so independent, so determined to handle things on her own and protect him from worrying about her. After all, he couldn't really be mad at her for a personality trait that he also shared.

But that left him in limbo. Stuck between mad and scared and not knowing how to feel in the first place. Sat rigidly on a plane, that stupid fucking voicemail playing over and over in his head as they cruised through the sky towards Atlanta, completely unsure of what he was about to walk into. He'd been called to the hospital twice over the years for JJ being injured… once for a head laceration, the second for a gunshot. One minor, one serious.

What awaited him this time, he really had no idea.

The sun was barely up by the time the wheels hit the tarmac in Atlanta, and while others made their way bleary eyed to baggage claim, Will had beelined for the exit at the front of the terminal. He'd been swept up immediately by an agent from the local FBI field office, guided over to a government SUV, and before long, they were pulling up outside Emory University Hospital.

"Will," was Emily's soft greeting when he rounded the corner on the neurology floor about ten minutes later.

"Emily, what… what the hell's goin' on?" he said hoarsely, glancing around at the signs lining the hallway. "Why are we on the neurology floor? Is JJ ok?"

"Will, we're gonna explain everything," Rossi said as calmly as he could manage, but he knew it was fruitless; he could see the frantic energy radiating off the younger man's body, and he could hardly blame him. After all, getting a call in the middle of the night to get to another state where your wife was in hospital… it was never a good omen. "Come in here with us"

Will wanted to argue. He wanted to raise his voice, slam his hand against the wall, and demand that they tell him what was happening. But he couldn't. Instead, he obliged, meekly following the two agents into a nearby family room, where a doctor was waiting for them. Almost immediately, his stomach rolled, and the worry that had settled in his stomach began to rattle up into his chest as the door clicked closed behind them.

"Where's JJ?" he asked, his voice sounding incredibly hollow as he stared pleadingly at the three people in the room.

"Mr LaMontagne," the doctor said gently, setting the chart in his hand down on the table in the middle of the room. "I'm Dr Rishi Sedra, I treated your wife Jennifer last night when she was brought into the ER. Why don't you take a seat and we can discuss her condition?"

"I'm fine standin'," Will replied firmly. "I just want someone to tell me what's goin' on"

"Ok," Dr Sedra said, exhaling heavily. "I'm not sure how much you know-"

"Nothing," Will cut in, fast becoming exasperated. "No-one has told me fuckin' anything. I don't even know why JJ is here in the first place, what the fuck happened out there?"

"Will," Emily said carefully, holding out a hand to the distressed man. "I'm sorry, I just… I had to get you here without you freaking out first. I didn't want to explain it all over the phone"

"Well, I'm here now!" Will exclaimed. "So cut the bullshit!"

"JJ and Luke entered a location out in Whitfield County last night that we now know belongs to our UnSub," Rossi said in a level voice. "It appeared to be an abandoned shipping container that was buried underground. When they went inside, they found a homemade bomb, which triggered once they were there. They both went to get out as soon as the bomb armed, but they didn't get back to the entrance in time and it detonated while they were still inside"

Will stared at Rossi for a moment, his lungs feeling like someone had sucked all the air from them. "Is she… is JJ dead?"

"Your wife is alive," Dr Sedra added gently, stepping forward to take the reins from Rossi. "However, she was significantly injured in the blast. We're not entirely sure on how it occurred, but your wife has two fractures in her neck, one at her C4 vertebrae, and the other just below it in her C5. The C5 break is more severe, and it has caused damage to her spinal cord. However, the injury is not complete, meaning that the cord was not completely severed, just compressed, and she was taken in to surgery as soon as this was discovered"

Will felt weak. He reached for the arm of the chair behind him, barely noticing when Dave and Emily helped guide him into it as his legs feebly gave way.

"Is she.. can she walk?"

"At this point in time… no," Dr Sedra said softly. "She was unable to feel or move anything below her shoulders when she was brought into the ER. Obviously, we noticed the slight movement which led us to take her into surgery... but Mr LaMontagne, I need you to understand how serious this injury is. Your wife may very well be able to learn to walk, and run, and use her hands fully again... but a complete recovery from a spinal cord injury is... impossible. She will never be the same, physically, as she once was"

Will tried to force himself to breathe as he lowered his gaze from the doctor's face. His entire body felt like jelly, his mind reeling completely from the whopping blow he'd just been delivered.

"I… I think I'm gonna be sick," he choked out a few seconds later. As soon as he finished speaking, he retched, but Rossi was faster, already sliding a trash can into his lap. Will heaved into it, upending the little he'd managed to force down before boarding his flight that morning.

"We can take you to see her," came Dr Sedra's soft voice. "The surgery went well last night. She's already awake and alert this morning"

"Does she know?" Will said weakly, allowing Rossi to move the trash can away as he lifted his head, accepting the tissues Emily handed over to him. Emily nodded, her eyes awfully bright as she stepped back.

"She does," she replied quietly. "I told her last night in the ER"

There were a million questions running through his mind, but he couldn't vocalise any of them. All he knew, all he wanted right now, was to see his wife. He needed to know that above all else, she was alive. "T-take me to her. I need to see her"

And so it was on shaking legs that he followed Sedra to the room in which JJ was being looked after. He felt sick, his stomach still turning, his hands shaking along with his legs as they paused outside the door.

"I'm going to be at the nurse's station just down the hall. If you need anything or if you have any questions, please just hit the call button and I'll come right back," Sedra said gently. Will nodded, swallowing hard as Sedra turned the handle and pushed open the door.

When he stepped over the threshold, the door closing behind him, the hustle and bustle of the hospital suddenly died away. All that remained was the gentle hum of the air filtration system, and the steady beeping of a monitor. With hesitant steps, he walked forward, pushing aside the curtain that shielded the rest of the room from the view of the doorway.

Ahead of him lay JJ, her body supported by the positioning of the bed. Tubes and wires ran from various parts of her body, back up to monitors and IV bags that were hanging on the pole beside her bed. She was awake, her head tipped ever so slightly towards the window, her eyes fixed on the view beyond.

Suddenly it all hit him. At the same moment that JJ realised he was in the room, he felt the sobs threatening to rattle up in his chest. Tears welled up in his eyes, his hand coming up to his mouth as he came to stand by the foot of her bed. The part of him that had wanted to feel angry at her earlier was melting away… how could he even consider getting angry at her when she was like this?

"Don't," JJ said tearfully, her voice catching in her throat. "Don't look at me like that"

"JJ-"

"You'll make me cry. I don't want to cry," she cut in, her composure failing even as she spoke, the tears beginning to spill down her cheeks.

"You can cry if you need to," Will replied tearfully, shakily lowering himself into the armchair beside the bed.

"I was so scared," JJ whispered, closing her eyes in an attempt to stem the flow of tears. "When I realised it was a bomb… I thought I was going to die"

"But you didn't. You're still here," Will reminded her, wiping his cheeks on the back of his hand.

"How is this any better though?" JJ sobbed, her voice rasping out as she spoke. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"Hey," Will said softly, reaching over to take her hand. "Remember what I told you last week? It takes two of us… whatever happens, we're gonna work it out together"

JJ's eyes drifted down to where his hand was closed around hers, before a fresh wave of tears came rattling up, flooding down her cheeks with a vigour that was only further tearing Will's heart in two.

"JJ?"

She heaved a breath, trying desperately to grab her composure back before she spoke, but both of them knew it was pointless. Lifting her eyes back to meet his, her face crumpled as she opened her mouth to speak.

"I… I can't feel you holding my hand"