a second chance - Hotchniss

Sick [Alaska]

When I came home late at night, I found my parents sleeping on the couch. Mum had her head resting on Dad's chest, he had his arms wrapped around her, just like he wanted to protect her from anything that could hurt her.

I smiled at this sight and covered them with a blanket before heading upstairs. As I laid down in my bed, I only realized how tired I was and drifted off before I could even start to think about my parents.

The next morning, I immediately realized that something was wrong as soon as I had opened my eyes. My body was shivering, my head hurt as hell and my throat did as well. I got up and walked downstairs.

"Mum", I yelled weakly and she looked out of the kitchen. Before I could even say that I felt sick, she said: "Oh my god, Alaska, you look terrible!"

"I feel terrible, too", I whispered. She directly walked up to me and touched my forehead.

"I guess you're having a temperature as well", she sighed. "Go to bed again. I will look for some medicaments and we will be right there, okay?"

I nodded, I felt this weak that I did not even think about the we as I headed upstairs again. I tried to sleep again, but everything hurt too much. Some minutes later, Mum and Dad entered my room. We. Mum gave me some syrup against the temperature and the headache as well, she then handed me a scarf and sat down on the edge of my bed. My dad sat down on the chair next to it.

"You'll feel better soon", my Mum said while stroking my arm.

"Can I stay home today?", I whispered.

My Dad laughed: "Can? You have to, you're sick, honey."

I nodded to myself and sighed. I hated being sick, it made me look so weak. And it was boring as well. There was nothing I could do at home.

"I'm gonna stay home with you", my mother then announced, looking at me, worried.

"You don't have to", I croaked.

"But I want to keep an eye on you."

"Seriously? I'm not a baby anymore!", I rolled my eyes but since she did not even answer, I knew that I couldn't change her mind. Then, an idea hit my mind. "I could go to work with you!"

"I don't think that this is a good idea", she sighed and my father nodded as well.

"Oh, come on", I begged. "I can distract myself and I have something to do, here I'm just gonna drown in self-pitty!"

Mum turned her head to look at Dad and he slightly nodded. She then turned to me: "Okay, here's a deal. Dad's gonna head to work now and we will stay here. If your temperature goes down, we're going to join him. Deal?"

I nodded and smiled as they left the room, leaving me to myself.

-

Some hours later I found myself curled up in a blanket on the couch, watching old episodes of "Gilmore Girls" with my Mum. "Gilmore Girls" was our usual 'What-to-do-when-you-are-sick'-program and I kinda loved it.

"So how are you and Dad?", I asked at the end of the episode.

"We're good", she smiled and it was the first time I had seen her being this honest for quite a while. "We're not together again, but we're good and we're going to see where this takes us."

"That's good", I smiled as well. She climbed over to me and pulled me into her arms as we continued to watch "Gilmore Girls".

"You're gonna get sick, too", I said.

"I don't care", she smiled and I leaned my head against her shoulder.

After another episode we had enough of Rory and all her problems, so checked on my temperature.

"It's going down", my Mum said in relief.

"Does that mean we can go to work?", I smiled, full of hope just like a 5-years-old.

"Yes", she sighed. "I guess we can."

About half an hour later we left the elevator and walked towards my Mum's desk.

"Heeey, look who's here!", Luke yelled as he saw me. "Mini-Emily!"

"Nah, she's Mini-Hotchner!", Penelope said as she walked by.

"What about just Alaska?", I asked and they laughed. Suddenly I discovered JJ walking up to us and froze. I did not want to talk to her right now.

"I'm gonna go with Penelope", I quickly told my Mum before leaving them.

As I was about to walk after her, I accidentally bumped into Reid. "Oh, Alaska, hey!", he smiled. "You don't look good. Are you sick?"

"Yup", I nodded, rushing past him into Penelope's office.

"I knew you would come to see me", she greeted me. "I just have the most interesting things to do."

"True", I grinned and sat down next to her. "What are you doing?"

"I just finished the file of our last case.", she answered. "Anything I can do for you today?"

"Actually, no", I sighed, realizing how weak I still was. "I just want to sit here and watch you doing interesting stuff with your computer."

"Easy enough", she chuckled and continued typing. I silently observed her working for a while, until I started to feel dizzy and fell asleep shortly afterwards.

As I woke up, Garcia was gone. I turned around on my chair just to see JJ leaning in the door frame. I froze and did not say anything.

"How are you?", she asked.

"Better.", I nodded and looked down.

"You've been avoiding me."; she then said and raised her eyebrows.

"No?", I mumbled.

"Oh, come on", she sighed and sat next to me on Garcia's chair. "You do remember the last time we talked as well."

Of course I did. It was horrible,

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry", she said. "I shouldn't have reacted like that."

I looked up to her. "No", I whispered. "I should be sorry." And the next thing I knew that she put her arms around me while I was crying in her shoulder. I didn't even know why I was crying, I guess it was some kind of first time that I could finally let all my feelings run free. For a long time I had been keeping it all in and now I finally let go.

After quite a while, I pulled away.

"If you ever need anything, just call me, okay?", she said and I nodded; "Thank you, JJ."

And in this moment, I felt that JJ and I finally got closer again. I just then realized how much I had missed our friendship, our conversations, everything. Everyone needed someone like her in their life and I was very thankful that I got to know her.