A Long Way From The Playground

CHAPTER 34

"It's quite the miracle you know, that no major arteries were hit. He was stabbed 9 times in the abdomen and yet there was no major damage done other than the obvious." The doctor explains as we walk down the hall to his room.

"Yeah well the guy that did this is a self proclaimed 'expert' at stabbing without major damage." I mumbled, scanning the doorways as we passed them.

"Your guy is in this room. He's still sedated and probably won't wake up for at least another hour. I need to get his updated information into the system though." The doctor mentions, as we stop in front of a small hospital room. I nod and peer inside to see Aaron's unconscious body lying in the bed wearing the typical hospital gown.

"Thank you Doctor. Another agent, Emily Prentiss, is on her way with his wallet and badge. She should come in when she gets here." I offer, turning back to face them with a small smile. She nods and closes the chart, slipping it back into the end of the bed before walking out. I sigh in relief and drop into the plastic chair next to the bed and rest my hand gently over the top of his and watch as his chest rises and falls with the soft gentle breaths he's taking. Emily bursts through the door a couple minutes later and places her hand over her chest at the sight of him.

"I know...me too.." I whisper, turning the upper half of my body to look at her. She sinks into the other chair and pulls it closer so that shes sitting next to me, dropping her hand into my other one in support.

The two of us watch in silence as the monitors beep rhythmically along to his beating heart and the green line pulses in time. I pull my phone out to send a quick text to Penelope, letting her know that we were at the hospital with him and everything was fine for now. I look over at his chart and spot something vaguely familiar and I tap on Em's arm, pointing to the chart so that she understood what I wanted. I watch as she pulls it out of the slot and recognizes the same thing I saw on the top of the paper. 'L.C' She looks at me with wide eyes and grabs the chart, standing and walking out to find the doctor to get an answer to what it means. A small commotion in the hallway grabs my attention and I look up, seeing Emily pace back and forth while on the phone with someone. I risk a glance back over to Aaron and let go of his hand, standing up and walking out to meet her in the hallway.

"Em?" I ask once I get closer, listening as she speaks to someone briefly before hanging up.

"LC, Living Children. It's for when they are afraid a patient is going to go on life support and they don't have any DNR or DNI orders. I told Reid right before I heard a gunshot and he isn't answering me, I deployed units to his location but I don't know if they'll get there in time. They weren't going after Jeffrey..." Emily rambles quickly.

"They were going after Dr Barton!" I fill in, paling at the thought of Spence being injured. She nods and we both head back into Aaron's room to wait around for either him to wake up or for more information on the situation at the house.

One tense, stress filled hour later, the sound of hurried footsteps in the hallway grabs both mine and Emily's attention and we turn, watching as Derek, JJ and Dave jog up to the door. We both stand and meet them in the hallway, giving the doctor some privacy as she checks his vitals again since he had yet to wake up.

"He still isnt awake yet, its been well over an hour since we both got here." I say before anyone could get the chance to ask.

"What happened?" JJ questions, glancing over my shoulder to look at Aaron.

"After you guys left to head to the school, Reid and I started going through the doctors files but we realized it would take much longer than we thought with just the three of us. I elected to go back into town and pick up Hotch and bring him back to Dr Barton's house because we needed another set of eyes and plus nobody had heard from him all morning." Emily begins, picking at the skin around her nails as she explains.