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“You should get some rest,” Rossi advised gently as he approached the chair beside the hospital bed. Emily didn’t even look in his direction as she shook her head in response.
“I’m fine,” Emily lied as she kept her vigil by Aaron’s side. Although she wasn’t the one who had stabbed Aaron multiple times, she still felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and remorse. Not only had it taken her far too long to accept that Aaron being AWOL was a serious cause for concern; she had left him alone that night in the first place.
He had offered to keep her company.
The rest of the team were either refusing to leave one another’s side or in JJ’s case, rushing home to her family, to try and forget the horrors they had witnessed on the pig farm. Emily had been tempted to accept his offer, yet at the time, she had declined. She hadn’t been able to put a finger on what had made her decline the offer, but she had.
Maybe if she had been there it might not have happened…
No.
She knew that if she had been there, it definitely wouldn’t have happened. Her presence there would not have been part of Foyet’s plan and there was no way he would have hurt Aaron as much if she had been there. Either she would have been wounded too or she could have been the one who killed him in that moment. If she had been there.
But she hadn’t been there.
She wasn’t able to prevent Aaron’s attack, help him sooner than she had or just cut out the middle man and kill Foyet herself. Emily had had enough time over the past few days to imagine various scenarios wherein they found Foyet and how the team would end his pitiful existence. Although there had been no official conversation, the team’s stance on Foyet was clear. He would be killed on sight, no hesitation, no discussion. They would kill him and whoever had the honour of doing so, would be protected by the others. No matter what.
“This wasn’t your fault,” Rossi said gently and Emily tightened her grip on the wooden arm of the uncomfortable chair by Aaron’s bedside before she relaxed it again.
“I know. I’m not the one who stabbed him.” Emily retorted, she was in no mood for Rossi at the moment. Not his sly comments about why she had remained by Aaron’s bedside. Not his paternal reassurances that Aaron would be OK. And especially not the pitying look that she could feel despite not looking at his face.
“I never said you did.” Rossi said as he pulled a chair over to the bed. “How’s he doing?”
“No change,” Emily replied morosely as she watched the steady line move up and down on the screen as it monitored his heart rate. “Then again, if I was him, I wouldn’t be rushing to wake up from a coma either.”
It had happened hours after Haley and Jack had been taken into protective custody. They had assumed that Aaron had fallen asleep, until the monitors began making noises, doctors rushed in and panic took over. It took far too long for them to stabilise Aaron and determine the cause for the sudden turn in his health.
An infected cut on his leg from the pig farm.
Emily vaguely recalled that he had grazed his leg against a rusted rake in the barn that Lucas Turner resided in. At the time, Aaron insisted he was fine, stick a basic band aid over it and they continued with the case; too focused on the horror and barbarity of the pig farm, the search for Kelly and the discovery of more and more traces of victims that had been fed to the pigs; shoes, necklaces, coins; to consider it was anything more than a cut.
Had things have been different, according to the doctors, it would have most likely been a minor infection. Easily treated with antibiotics, possibly draining any pus and a few days out of the field. However an infected wound on a body which had also then undergone as much trauma as Aaron’s had; well; that was another story entirely. His body had been too weak to fight the infection and the doctors had had to place him into a medically induced coma to allow the antibiotics and various other medicines to do their work.
That had been three days ago and Emily had not left his side. The only times she had, had been when she needed the restroom and only if one of the nurses had agreed to stay in the room. Some may have seen it as overdramatic or overprotective but with Foyet, there was no predicting his actions anymore.
He had managed to get in and out of Aaron’s apartment without being seen or noticed. A public place like a hospital would be far too easy for him to get into.
“Emily, it’s OK. I can stay with him while you go and get some sleep, maybe something to eat or a shower.” Rossi advised gently as he looked at Aaron’s unconscious form. The team were technically on stand down due to both Aaron and Reid being in the hospital. Morgan and JJ had taken the lead on cleaning the mess in Aaron’s apartment, respackling the wall and ensuring the blood was cleaned from his carpet. Garcia was tasked with keeping an eye on Reid and making sure that he didn’t try to escape from the hospital; a task she was succeeding in thanks to multiple ‘Doctor Who’ marathons. He had lost the coin toss on who would try and get Emily to leave Aaron’s bedside.
“I’m fine,” Emily insisted. She managed to get a few hours of sleep last night, her already light sleeping frequently interrupted with various noises from around the hospital and her own nightmares. “I-I can’t leave him alone.”
“He won’t be alone,” Rossi said carefully. “I’m here and I’ll stay here until you come back. You know this isn’t good for either of you and if Aaron were awake, he would say the same thing.”
“I know,” Emily whispered. She knew that Aaron would hate such a fuss being made over him. She would hate it too. However she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. She had already abandoned him once, she couldn’t do it again. “But I can’t leave him.”
“You have to, just for a few hours. Go home, have a hot shower, eat something that wasn’t from a vending machine. Then you can come back.” Rossi suggested fairly. If Aaron had been in hospital for any other reason than this, then he might have considered teasing Emily for refusing to leave his bedside.
Emily looked at Rossi and he could see the genuine fear and concern in her eyes. In that moment he knew, whatever feelings Emily had for Aaron, they ran a lot deeper than the initial attraction or infatuation he had assumed it was. Instead, at that moment, Rossi knew that Emily truly loved Aaron. “Do you promise me that you’ll stay with him.”
“I promise,” Rossi said sincerely. “And if he moves so much as a finger, I will call and let you know.”
“OK,” Emily said quietly as she reached over and took Aaron’s hand in hers. Every so often, either to break the silence or because the nurses had gently suggested that he might be able to hear her, she had spoken to him. Usually if she was stepping out of the room. “I’m going home for a while Aaron. Rossi’s here so try to stay asleep. If you wake up, he’ll try to bore you to death with his stories about the good old days.”
Just as it had been every other time she had spoken to him, there was no response from Aaron. Not that she expected one. Life wasn’t like the movies. There was no magic word that could stir someone from a coma, no sequence of sentences to lure them back to the land of the living. Instead, she settled for rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb before she slowly stood up.
“I’ll take care of him,” Rossi reassured as he hugged Emily tightly. Emily hugged him back and blinked back her tears. The guilt of leaving Aaron weighed as heavily in her chest as it had before, however she knew that the sooner she left, the sooner she could return. And when Aaron woke up she would…
No, she would wait and when this was all over, then and only then would she tell him the truth about how she felt for him. Not before. As soon as Foyet was dead and Haley and Jack were home and safe; then and only then would she be honest with Aaron and tell him how she felt.
No matter how long that would take.