Chapter Text
everything will change nothing
stays the same nobody is perfect,
but everyone’s to blame
Just one day ago the team sat in Rossi’s garden enjoying a Sunday afternoon off in the sun.
JJ watched as Will and Spencer played a game of two a side football with Henry and Jack, a smile on her face as she listened to her son laugh, before turning to talk to Garcia.
Derek grilled the BBQ, cheering on for Spencer and Jack, winking at his boyfriend when the man turned around and threw a thumbs up when he scored.
Rossi and Emily spoke as he poured them both another drink from the outdoor bar he’d just bought. Aaron came up behind her and wrapped his arm round her waist, kissing the side of her head as she leaned into him. Rossi had rolls his eyes at the couple before making Aaron a scotch and telling the two of them to get a room. but "not one in his house. Please."
Just one day ago the team were happy, laughing and enjoying their day off in the sun.
Now they didn’t know if they’d ever have a day like that again.
-
Aaron is sat in the waiting area of the hospital, his eyes on the wall in front of him while he grips hold of her necklace in his hand that he had made into a fist. His mind runs back to the scene, him and Rossi running towards the car that was at the bottom of the hill, upside down and smashed. He remembers the feeling of absolute dread the minute he caught sight of the vehicle for the first time. The absolute fear when he only saw JJ and Morgan stood there talking to each other while they tried to open a car door. He closes his eyes as Dave takes a seat next to him and places a hand on his shoulder.
He takes a deep breath.
“She was only in the back because-"
“Don’t.” Dave stops him, “This isn’t your fault.”
“She shouldn’t have even been with them.”
“I know.” Dave tells him, “But she was. There is not point working yourself up about things you can’t change.”
“She could d-"
“Stop it.” Dave orders, Aaron looks at the older man. “Emily will be fine.”
Aaron turns away and swallows, opening his hand and looking at her necklace that was full of her blood, as were his hands, his shirt, his blazer...
“Yeah..” Aaron whispers while he looks down at the piece of jewellery she’d wore everyday since he’d known her. But he’s not sure he believes it. He’d been with her. He’d seen her, and he didn’t know if a person came back from those injures.
“Go and clean up.” Dave tells him, “When she wakes up she’ll want to see you and I don’t think she’d appreciate you being covered in her blood.”
The unit chief nods and stands up, before walking away slowly towards the toilets.
JJ comes and sits next to Rossi, her arm in a cast, stitches on her head and a busted lip. She’d gotten the best of it. Her worst injury a broken arm a few bruised ribs and Dave could see from the look on her face that the guilt of that was eating her alive.
“How is he?” She asks gently, looking at him with wide eyes.
“He’s coping.” Dave nods, JJ looks to the ground.
“This isn’t fair.” She mumbles, “Why have I only got this but she got-"
“JJ-“
“Maybe if- Why didn't- if we had half of each other’s injures…” She spoke, unsure of how to even word how she felt but knowing Rossi would understand.
“I know.” Rossi nods, “But, we have to think positive right now. For Emily.”
“For Emily.” She nods, and they sit in silence for a few moments before her phone rings, making the both of them jump.
“It’s Will..” She says, Rossi smiles and she takes the call, staring and heading outside.
He looks around the waiting room and the absence of the dark haired, rowdy, agent was sickening. In moments like this he truly realises how easily one of them could be ripped away. How one car crash can leave one of them fighting for their lives, while the others sit and wonder why her? Why not them?
Derek finds himself pacing up and down as he mumbles, trying to force himself to remember what happened. How this happened.
His doctor had told him he had to rest, that he had a concussion and several fractured ribs but he couldn’t, he needed to be with his team, he needed to be with them because what if- no. He couldn’t think like that. She’d be fine. She had to be fine. When he wasn’t pacing the waiting room he was stood at Spencer’s bedside, watching as he slept off the morphine from his surgery.
The genius had a broken leg from impact, several broken ribs and a concussion, but he had needed surgery due to the internal bleeding from his abdomen. An injury he had ignored while trying to get to Emily before Dave and Hotch had showed up.
Rossi watches as Morgan once again walks back into Spencer’s room just as Garcia walks out.
Garcia takes a deep breath as she squeezes Derek's hand as he passes her, she watches Derek take a seat next to Spencer’s bed and watch him. The rise and fall of his chest. He places a hand in his and Penelope walks away with a sad smile. She takes a seat next to Rossi and looks around.
“Where did JJ go?”
“Will called.”
“Ah..” Garcia says, “He’s on his way I imagine.”
Rossi shrugs in response as Garcia looks away.
“She’s gonna be fine, right?” Penelope asks him.
“Yeah.” Dave tells her with certainly that he doesn’t have. Not really.
“I mean it’s Emily. She survives everything.”
“Exactly.” Dave says and grabs the woman’s hand and squeezes it.
“God what if-" She stops and shakes her head, “She’s the glue, you know? She brings us all together. Without her…” Garcia trails off softly, she looks towards Hotch as he walks out of the toilets in a new, bloodless shirt and with clean hands.
“Without her, we loose him. For good this time.” JJ says as she takes a seat next to Rossi. “He came back after Haley because of her, because she was there for him… she was able to bring him back.”
“If we lose Hotch…” Garcia says, “If we loose Hotch we loose everyone.”
“Emily is going to be fine.” Dave tells the women, “Nobody is loosing anyone.”
“I think we should prepare for that possibility…” JJ tells them sadly, “She has major, major injuries… the car… it hit her straight on. She-“
“I know.” Rossi says, stopping the woman from making him relive the scene from the crash.
The begs of Aaron asking her to hold on for him. for them. The cries of Spencer and Derek as they tried to, once again, lift the car door that was on top of her, lodged under something that was so much stronger than them.
He can still hear her sort breathes, her soft whispers, her coughs, her choking on her own blood, the way she was trying to assure Aaron that it was okay.
He can hear the panicked way Aaron shouted her name a few minutes before the paramedics came.
He was brought from his thoughts when Derek walks out of the room and he stands up, another scene between a worried, scared, heartbroken Aaron and a guilty, shaking, injured Derek was not what they needed. not again. not right now.
Aaron spots derek at the same time other man spots him and Derek can’t help but walk over.
“I’m so sorry.” He tells his boss, his friend, who may lose the women he loves because of him. Because he didn’t see the car. He didn’t move out the way fast enough. He swerved the car down the hill and he put spencer before Emily. “I didn’t see the car, Hotch. I didn’t see it- And- If she- I’m sorry. This is all my fault and I’m so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself if-“ Derek is crying now, standing a few feet from Aaron, and Dave takes a step forward as Hotch heads towards him, before stopping when Hotch wraps the crying man into his arms.
“It’s not your fault.” Aaron tells the man, and Derek nods against his shoulder and his arms come around the man’s back. “None of this is your fault.”
“I should have seen the car-“
“No.” Aaron tells him, “It could have happened to anyone. This isn’t your fault.”
“I’m sorry.” Morgan whispers to him, Aaron just pats the man on the back and nods.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He tells him.
The men pull away and Aaron nods, before walking to take a seat in the spot he was sat in before and just stares at her necklace in his hand.
In his mind he doesn’t see her bleeding out in front of him while he tries to keep her conscious, he doesn’t hear her chocking as she tries to breathe or the way her voice is barley a whisper. He doesn’t feel her fading away while he watches Derek and Spencer try and get the door off her.
He see’s them on Saturday mornings, her laughing at something stupid he’d said while reading the paper. He sees her smiling as he places a gentle kiss on her forehead when he passes her, he hears her softly telling him she loves him in the dark, he hears her talking to his son about anything and everything the boy brings up. He hears her giggle as he kisses just the right spot. He remembers the way she reaches for him in the night, the way she will bury her face in the pillow if they’re woken up before seven, the way her smile can change his mood instantly.
He remembers the way she loved him and the way he loved her.
Aaron is then pulled from that with words that come before the ones that could change the course of his life forever.
“Family of Emily Prentiss?”
All five of them rise.
JJ grabs Garcia’s hand. Rossi holds his head high, trying to not let the fear that he may loose his favourite person take over, Derek just looks ahead and Aaron holds his breath and grips her necklace and they brace themselves.
Just one day ago the team were happy, laughing and enjoying their day off in the sun.
Now they didn’t know if they’d ever be a team ever again.