Jet Lag

Chapter 9: Heaven In A Hospital

Over the most mundane things, we say "I had a bad day". The flu, a stomach ache, a fight with the boss, a root canal, these are the kind of culprits behind a ruined day. Yet, nothing terrible happened at all. It is when these awful things really happen that we beg to have those scream outs, the fits of rage, coffee stains, and alarms going off late that just seems to ruin your day before you are even out of the bed. Ruined your day? Hardly.

"I was going through his medical reports..." something she probably shouldn't have been doing. "I just kept going back farther and farther. There was Rossi's signature, that was pretty recent. There was Garcia's after the internal bleeding. There was mine and then it was Haley. She just kept coming up like a ghost to pound into my mind how alone he is. How it's just him and Jack."

There's a moment of silence to accompany the melancholy that her words settle over them.

"Did you know, when he was still in SWAT, he got shot and it almost paralyzed him?" Guessing from their silence she assumes they hadn't.

Morgan takes a shallow breath before quickly rattling off," Reid has a skull fracture and he still hasn't woken up." He's visibly scratching at the skin around his thumb, a tick they had yet to have seen.

JJ looks around Rossis' small room," I know I am gonna sound like an ass but I have to ask... Have you given your statements, yet?"

Emily cringes and closes her fist to keep herself from digging at her nails. "Yeah," her voice is strained. She'd rather not have to relive telling the police what it was like to hold a friend's body in her arms and pray that he made it through the hour. She would rather not have to think about holding his seizing body in her arms. She'd rather just pretend that they're all right. That Reid will wake up. That the raging fever in Hotch's body will die down. That they'll just live.

"We did." Morgan stands to his full height and begins his signature NASCAR pacing.

"How do you two feel?" Rossi had been relatively quiet throughout the whole exchange, understandably.  

Emily hadn't actually thought about how she feels yet.

Awful? Kinda.
Alone? When doesn't she feel alone.
Guilty? Well yeah..
Miserable? Only when she breathes.

"Okay." She immedialty cringes, she sounds like Hotch.

After being strangled he was "okay". After being blown up and losing a close friend he was "okay". After having his already wounded ears subjected to the awful sound of metal against metal he was "okay". He was "okay" after being stabbed. He's just "okay".

"And you?" Rossi doesn't have the time or energy to play mind games.

"I'll be fine." Morgan replies on whim. Hospital make him feel uneasy and unprotected. It's always been that way since his father died.

Rossi nods," go back up." He lays himself back into the bed. "JJ was hoping to bring the boys by, I need my beauty sleep."

"Is she taking them to see.."

Rossi nods, but keeps his head turned away.

Morgan can see that Emily's panicking.

"Emily..." Morgan says hesitantly.

Her breathing is getting quicker.

"Emily?" He sees her knees dip," Emily!"

***

"Careful," Jack warns.

"Don't you tell me to be quiet. This was your stupid idea." Obviously Jack and Henry.