Stars | Aaron Hotchner

25

     "Would you stay still?" Stephen whined as he tried to put a sling on me.

     "I don't need this," I said in protest.

     "Catherine, you can't use your arm. You need to let it heal."

     "I won't use it," I said. He sighed.

     "Please. At least for a week."

I rolled my eyes and took the sling from him, and put it over my shoulder. He smiled in victory as I put my arm in the hole.

"I'm going to go back out to the team," I said, turning towards the door.

"Wait," Stephen said. I turned to look at him. "Veronica and I broke up." My stomach churned at the sound of her name.

"Why?" Was all I managed to get out.

"Well I did what you said and got her drunk, and-," I cut him off.

"I did not say to get her drunk, I said one drink to loosen her up."

"Tomato tomahto." He said, shrugging my comment off. "She got drunk and started droning on about some guy she wasn't over, so I ended it."

"You... ended it," I stated back.

"Yes?"

I took a deep breath. Should I tell him now? He didn't seem too shaken up about the breakup.

"Have a seat, Steph," I said, patting the hospital bed.

He looked at me with his face turned in curiosity as he walked over to the hospital bed and sat. How the hell was I going to say this?

"Veronica," I paused. "Is," I paused again. "Was," damn. This is a rough start. I took a deep breath.

"Veronica held Aaron captive and beat the crap out of him, then beat the crap out of me," I said too quickly. "Aaron killed her 'lover', so she took Aaron captive to get to me, to kill me."

Stephen started laughing hysterically, but after a few seconds when he saw I wasn't laughing, he got very serious.

"You're serious? Veronica did this to you?" He said, motioning to my arm.

I nodded politely.

"The case I'm talking about is technically classified but I can give you a synopsis if you want," I said, talking about Foyet.

He held his hand up as if to stop me. "No thank you." He paused. "So Veronica must be dead now if she held two agents captive."

"Yes," I stated.

"Damn. I guess I dodged a bullet."

I looked at him confused.

"She didn't."

Stephen started cracking up and I followed, tears running down my face as we laughed. It felt good to be happy, even if I knew it would be gone in a minute.

"But really, you're not more torn up about this? I thought you really liked her."

"She's been pulling away from me for a while. I guess in my gut I just knew something was wrong. Of course, I didn't think it was that she was a murderer, but hey. We're Gideons, our life isn't normal." He said.

I laughed at him and leaned in for a hug with my good arm. "I'm sorry."

"I'm fine."

"Alright well, I'm going to go back into the waiting room. Do you need anything?" I asked as I walked back towards the door.