Reid tapped quietly on the door to JJ's hospital room. Morgan looked up from where he was sat next to her bed. "Hey kid." He said. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. Reid looked around the room. Garcia had definitely been in today. The flowers in the 4 vases around the room had been replaced with fresh ones and there was another soft toy perched next to the bed.
His thoughts turned to JJ. "How is she?" Reid asked. He already knew the answer. It had been almost a week since they had rescued her, if rescued was really the right word. He didn't need to read her medical chart to know what it said, he had memorized it the first time he had sat at her bedside.
Morgan sighed. "The same."
Both men looked at the woman in the hospital bed. The ventilator kept her chest rising and falling but that was really the only sign that she was alive, that and the reassuring bleep of the critical care monitor. Her eyes flickered under their lids occasionally and every once in a while her muscles would twitch. She looked very small, just lying there, hooked up to all those machines.
"How are you doing?" Reid asked carefully.
Morgan hesitated before answering. "I'm doing okay, I guess. Doc says I can get the stitches taken out in another day or so. I don't feel so good with the meds though." Morgan wasn't sleeping well. On top of the side effects from the anti-retrovirals the doctors had him on, he was plagued by nightmares. Nightmares that usually involved JJ dying in his arms. It was illogical, he knew that. JJ was safe, and she was on the road to recovery, physically at least. But that knowledge didn't stop him from waking up in cold sweat every night screaming her name.
Reid nodded. Morgan, like the rest of the team, wasn't good at talking about his feelings. Neither of them said it, but that's what JJ had been good at, listening to their problems and worries and helping them through it. Her gentle nature and ceaseless compassion had been her defining qualities. Those, and her ability to make them laugh.
He watched as Morgan rubbed his wrist without even realizing he was doing it. "When are you getting it removed?" He asked.
Morgan looked at Reid, then down at his wrist in surprise. Reid was referring to the UV tattoo hidden in his skin. Morgan shrugged. "I don't know. With everything that's been going on, I haven't really given it much thought…"
"You should go get some sleep." Reid said quietly. The team was taking it in shifts, one would sit with JJ whilst the others either slept or helped at the station. There wasn't much for them to do at the station but they liked to keep busy. Just waiting would lead them down the road to insanity.
Morgan nodded; nightmares or not, he was exhausted. He clasped Reid's shoulder as he got up and left the room. Reid took his place at JJ's bedside.
Morgan was just approaching the exit of the ICU when he glanced into a room on his right. It was Crow's room. He stopped for a moment, then opened the door. The room was bare inside. They still hadn't identified the man who had saved JJ's life, likely more than once. Crow was also on a ventilator. He had made it through surgery but Morgan knew little more than that.
With no family or next of kin, no-one was there to sit by his bedside, praying that he would be okay. Morgan felt guilty about that; he should have been in to see him. But he hadn't, none of them had. There wasn't even a bunch of flowers in the room.
He sighed and left, taking his phone out of his pocket and dialing. Garcia picked up after the first ring. "Good evening, my knight. How can Queen Penelope be of service tonight?"
"Hey, Babygirl. Have you had any luck identifying JJ's friend yet?"
"I'm sorry, my sweet, I haven't. His DNA isn't in the system and he hasn't got any fingerprints for me to find a match."
