AN1: This story is based on characters from Criminal Minds. I do not make any claims to have created them but I do enjoy writing them.

AN2: I'm planning on this being a rather long story. JJ's critically hurt and Emily passes the hours waiting for the woman she loves to wake up by recounting their life together. The story will toggle from the present to the past. I hope that isn't too confusing.

AN3: The story is rated M but not all chapters will be M. I will try to remember to warn you when I've turned up the heat.

Hope you enjoy. Please read and review.

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The consistent sound of the ventilator was starting to drive Emily Prentiss crazy. Though she knew that it meant life for the woman lying in the bed before her, she wasn't sure if she was strong enough to continue listening to it. She'd been sitting in this same room listening to the rhythmic whooshing sound over and over for the past 6 hours. As she was watching the now familiar white, accordion shaped, air bag compress and expand over and over again, she found herself reminded of the song "Machinehead" by the band Bush. She kept hearing Gavin Rossdale's voice singing the familiar refrain in her head.

"Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out." she whispered her plea to the patient before her. "It's okay to let the machine work for you right now, Jareau, but I expect you to stop this bullshit sometime soon. We have a life to lead and a son that needs you. I need you."

Jareau was one Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Emily's wife and the mother of their infant son, Henry. Both Emily and JJ were Supervisory Special Agents for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, VA. Emily was one of the unit's profilers and JJ the unit's press liaison. The two women worked and lived together, spending almost every waking hour with one another. While most couples, no matter how much they loved each other, would end up suffocating under the constant presence of their partner, Emily and JJ wouldn't have it any other way. That's why Emily sat here now in this Minneapolis hospital holding the hand of the woman she loved, listening to the ventilator help JJ breathe, watching JJ's life displayed in the many machines that kept track of JJ's vital statistics, willing JJ to wake up.

Emily couldn't help but remember the last time she was in a hospital room with JJ. The circumstance was a much happier one, as it had been the day their son was born. Thoughts of Henry played in the profiler's mind. The little boy looked so much like JJ she would melt every time her son looked at her with the same bright blue eyes that he shared with his mother. She sighed as she thought about him having to spend extra time with Amanda, the live-in nanny they had hired to look after him. The two agents were gone so often it was really their only choice once it had been decided that JJ would return to work rather than be a stay-at-home mom. It's not what JJ wanted and Emily felt that was JJ's decision to make. Which is not to say they hadn't argued about it.

She knew she needed to leave JJ's side if only for a few minutes to check on their son but she was afraid once she left JJ would wake up and find herself alone. As much as Emily wanted JJ to regain consciousness, she didn't want her to be alone when it happened. Emily had decided to go make the necessary phone call when her friend Penelope Garcia walked into JJ's room.

Garcia, as the team affectionately calls her, was the BAU's technical analyst and JJ's best friend. She was JJ's maid-of-honor at their wedding and godmother to their son. Emily immediately realized that their Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner must have arranged to fly Garcia in from headquarters for moral support. That and Garcia would have gone crazy, and thusly made Hotch crazy, waiting to hear updates on JJ's status back in Quantico. Hotch knew how much the blonde media liaison meant to the computer wiz and Emily was grateful to have Garcia to lean on. Yes the rest of her team was here too but Garcia was the one person she wanted to be here the most.

"Oh my sweet girl!" exclaimed the zaftig blonde woman, going pale and tears welling in her eyes at the sight of JJ lying in a hospital bed, hooked to a ventilator with what appeared to be dozens of tubes connected to her body. Surrounded by all these machines, JJ looked tiny and certainly didn't give off the appearance of the tough FBI agent that she actually was.

Emily stood up and hugged their friend without letting go of JJ's hand. She didn't want to lose contact with her wife even if it was to comfort someone so important to the two of them. Garcia had always been supportive of their relationship, JJ having told Garcia about them right after their first date, so it was no surprise that she would be here now. Emily was just sorry that Garcia had to make the trip for this reason and that she had to see her best friend like this.

"Has she improved at all, Em?"

"She's about the same since they moved her to her room. The doctors don't really expect much of an improvement for the next 24 to 48 hours. That's a long time from now and this has already been a hell of a long day. Five hours of surgery, 12 hours of recovery." replied Emily retaking her seat at JJ's side. "At least now that she's in her own room I can sit with her. I'm just not sure if I'm going to make it through this."

"You will. You have to. For both of you. For Henry. Speaking of which, I called Amanda right after it happened so she didn't see it on the news. It's all over the place, Em. It's big news when an agent gets shot, especially on live TV. Henry's fine. Amanda is making sure he doesn't see any of the footage. He may only be 5 months old but he still doesn't need to see his mom getting shot."

"No, you're right about that. He doesn't. I was actually just telling myself I needed to call Amanda and check on him when you walked in but I didn't want to leave JJ. Thanks for taking care of that for me."

"Em, Amanda says she loves you two and hopes that JJ will be home soon. She's been trying to call you but it's going straight to voicemail." Garcia said

"I shut off my phone. I didn't want to have it go off when JJ's surrounded by these machines. Plus I really don't want to hear from my mother or hers for that matter." Emily stated. "Mrs. Jareau means well but she just doesn't get JJ. And you know she's not my biggest fan. I'm sure Hotch called her and I expect to see her here any moment now. It's been almost 24 hours since JJ got shot." Emily continued with a quick glance of the clock hanging on the wall.

Emily's whole life had changed about 24 hours before. The team was in Minneapolis looking for an unsub that was targeting blonde-haired, blue-eyed women in their mid- twenties to early-thirties. Emily had noticed at JJ's initial presentation in their conference room, how remarkably the unsub's seven victims resembled the woman standing before her. She had made a mental note to keep a close watch on her wife while they worked on this case. Hotch understood Emily's concern and had paired the two women together, knowing that if Emily could keep an eye on JJ, Emily would be better able to focus. Not that she would have been sub-par if she weren't with JJ, that was not something Agent Prentiss was capable of, but she would be more at ease knowing that JJ was safe.

So when JJ was standing at the temporary dais that the Minneapolis Police Department had placed on the steps in front of their station, telling the local media about the person they were seeking in the murders of these women, Emily was watching. Emily was always a little awed by the way JJ controlled her press conferences. She knew she could never be as relaxed as JJ was given both the circumstances of the press conference and the questions being hurled at her in such a rapid-fire manner. JJ stood at the podium in her crisp white shirt and black slacks, blond hair falling about her shoulders, taking question after question without even breaking a sweat. Emily thought JJ was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen and she still couldn't believe that this was the person that she shared her life with.

Emily was watching her lover proudly when all of a sudden JJ paused. This strange look appeared to overtake JJ's face, a combination of shock and pain. Emily's eyes narrowed wondering what was wrong when she noticed a bright red spot start to appear on JJ's white shirt, just above her right breast. Emily watched JJ look down at the spot that was starting to get bigger then look up to meet Emily's eyes before collapsing on the steps she was standing on. Emily pushed her way through the crowd yelling at people to get the hell out of her way. By the time Emily was able to get to her wife, JJ was losing a lot of blood despite the efforts of Hotch, who had been standing about 10 feet away from the liaison, to try to stop it by putting pressure over the chest wound Emily could hear taking in air. Emily had never seen such fear in JJ's eyes as she reached….

"Emily?"

Emily was snapped out of her thoughts of that horrible morning when Garcia placed her hand on Emily's shoulder.

"What? I'm sorry. I was just remembering how this whole mess started. Did you ask me something?"

"Yes. I asked how you were doing? I'm worried about you."

"Thanks but I'm more worried about JJ. And Henry. I've just been sitting here, holding her hand, thinking about our life. Trying to remember the way she says my name, the way she laughs, how much she loves our son, how much she loves me. I can't stand seeing her this way and I'd give anything to switch places with her."

Emily looked up at Garcia who now had tears running down her face unafraid to show the emotional toll this was taking on her. Garcia could only imagine how devastating this was for Emily. She knew how much her friends loved each other. And she knew that, if JJ died, Emily would be left a shattered mess. Garcia just prayed that didn't happen.

Emily, seeing her friend crying, stood up a second time and hugged her friend, again never releasing the hold she had on JJ's hand.

"I don't think have any tears left, Pen. I feel like I've been crying forever."

Just as Emily said that, JJ's cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. Neil Harden, came in followed closely by Aaron Hotchner and JJ's mother, Donna Jareau. The sight of her only daughter lying so helplessly in her bed staggered Mrs. Jareau and Hotch placed a hand on her elbow to help steady her. Donna looked at Emily and gave her a polite smile before heading to the other side of JJ's bed and taking JJ's other hand. Emily winced at the sight of Hotch's shirt. He had blood, JJ's blood, down the front and both cuffs, though they were rolled up, were tinged dark concealing the blood that was on those as well.

"The nurses in the monitoring station say that Agent Jareau's vitals have remained relatively stable. That's good news. Mrs. Jareau wanted to me explain what we should expect over the next few days so I thought I would come in and talk to all parties involved." Dr Harden explained. Dr. Harden knew of the relationship between the two agents and was not going to keep Emily out of the loop. That and he knew that Agent Prentiss held Agent Jareau's advance medical directive and power of attorney allowing her to make any necessary medical decisions on the other woman's behalf.

"Agent Jareau…" he continued

"JJ" Emily interrupted. "I'm sorry but can you please call her JJ."

"Very well, JJ has suffered a tremendous amount of trauma but she is relatively lucky. I say that only because I have seen much worse damage done by bullets. It nicked her right lung but missed the major blood vessel that lies right there that supplies blood to her heart. If it had hit the Superior Vena Cava, we wouldn't be standing here in this room right now. The bullet also exited cleanly without bouncing around inside of her doing further damage. It did fracture her left scapula as it exited but missed her spinal column."

Emily looked over at Garcia and noticed she subconsciously had her hand placed over the scar that remained from her own bullet wound and brush with death. Emily gently placed her hand over Garcia's to provide a little comfort to her blonde friend.

"So what's next, Dr. Harden?" asked Hotch

"Well, although JJ has been very lucky to this point, she was shot and has suffered damage to her right lung. The ventilator will help her breathe. We drained the blood that had been filling her lung and were able to repair a great deal of the damage during surgery but she would not be able to breathe on her own at this point. Her lung capacity is only at about 25-30% right now. But she does appear to be getting stronger which is a good sign. If she continues to improve, we will be able to remove the vent, even if she hasn't regained consciousness."

"Do you think that will happen, doctor?" asked Donna Jareau

"I'm optimistic that it will. There are no guarantees but she is doing about as well or maybe even better as anybody else I've ever seen that's been shot in the chest. She's young, strong, and incredibly healthy so that works in her favor too. But I don't know when that will happen. Today? Tomorrow? The day after? No one but the good man upstairs knows the answer to that question." the doctor answered.

"What can we do in the meantime?" asked Emily trying to find hope in the doctor's answers.

"Do what you've been doing, Agent Prentiss. Sit by her side, pray, talk to her. It's been my experience that the ones that make it are the ones that have the most to live for."

"Do you think she can hear me?" asked the dark-haired women

"Yes I do." replied the surgeon. He'd been doing this for a long time and many of his patients, once they had regained consciousness had told him the sound of their loved ones voices kept them alive.

"You two have a son together, right?" asked the doctor

"Yes. Henry."

"Then talk to her about Henry. About your life together. I assure you it will help. Now if you will excuse me, I have surgery scheduled to begin in about an hour. I'll be back to check on Agen…on JJ, later this afternoon."

They all thanked the surgeon for his time and watched him leave. Hotch and Garcia left to go give the rest of the team an update on JJ's condition leaving Emily in the room by herself with JJ's mother.

Ignoring the other woman, Emily stood up and kissed her wife gently on her forehead.

"See that baby, the doctor is optimistic and so am I. I know you will recover from this, Jareau. You have to. He says you can hear me so I'm going to remind you that I love you very much. That your son does too. He's doing okay, Jayj. Garcia checked with Amanda and he's fine." Emily said, tears that she thought she no longer had forming in her eyes. "I love you so much, sweetheart."

"Keep telling her that, Emily." JJ's mom said.

Emily looked up at the older blond woman more that a little shocked that she would encourage Emily to do so. To say that Donna Jareau was unsupportive of the relationship that Emily shared with her daughter would be an understatement. Donna had an extremely hard time accepting the fact that her daughter was involved in a gay relationship. She had an even harder time with it than Emily's own mother, which was really saying something.

"Don't be so surprised, Emily. I know how my daughter feels about you. Yes I am still having a hard time dealing with it but it doesn't mean that I don't know that JJ loves you very much. What is most important to me right now is her health. And if you talking to her and reminding her of your life together will help get her through this, well then that's all that matters."

"I have to say it makes me happy to hear you say that. It's all that matters to me too, Donna. I do love your daughter more than anything, except maybe our son but it's a really close race between those two. And I will sit here and talk to her until she wakes up even if it takes days. She means everything to me and…" Emily's tears finally won the battle they were fighting and she couldn't contain them anymore.

Donna Jareau moved over to the other side of JJ's bed and wrapped Emily in a warm embrace. She knew that Emily loved her daughter but, until this very moment, she didn't really know how much. Emily finally released the hand she had been holding for hours to hug JJ's mom, sobbing into the older woman's shoulder. Donna patted Emily's back and smoothed her hair while shedding her own tears. After a few minutes, Donna could tell that Emily was starting to compose herself again and she gently broke away from the embrace to look Emily in the eye.

"I'm going to go sit in that chair over by the window and I want you to talk to my daughter. I can't leave her but I want you to pretend that I'm not here. You are the only one that she'd want to hear from right now. You remind her of what's she's missing and what she needs to get back to." Donna told Emily honestly.

"Thank you, Donna. It means the world to me to have you realize that. I'm going to sit in this chair and talk to her. I'm going to tell her a story….the story of us."

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