**It used to bother me that Morgan and Hotch seemed so at one another's throats so I have this headcanon that after everything with Foyet Morgan patched the hole in his wall. Now, logic dictates that it was most likely the crime scene crew but my heart likes to believe Morgan and the others, while Hotch was in the hospital, got together and got rid of ever shred of evidence that Foyet had ever been in the apartment- the spilled liquor, shattered glass, blood stain, busted lock, and the bullet hole in the wall. This is, by an extension, several cases where the team took care of their boss.

"Liebe und Arbeit ... Arbeit und Liebe, das ist alles was es gibt." -Sigmund Freud

**"Love and work… work and love, that is all there is."

2004 -Reid

Spencer Reid is standing in the middle of it all. The screams of agents, those still able to breathe, to communicate fill his ears- it overwhelms him. He stays where he was left. Hands over his ears, knees pressed to his chest he refuses to move. Hotch told him not to move, so he won't.

"Agent Reid!"

He can feel hot tears sliding down his face. He's not supposed to be in the field. He doesn't have a gun.

"Reid-"

Reid forces his eyes open, they sting as the air and the tears mix. To his surprise, Hotch is crouched in front of him. The older man is skinny, European- Reid guesses Irish but Hotchner doesn't sound like an Irish name. Gideon would remind him that names are often deceiving but not Aaron. It means strong, exalted. His parents were probably religious, southern.

The man before him is conflicted. Not with Reid, Aaron Hotchner knows a lot about Reid. Profilers profile and no matter how many times they redraw the line they each step over it. No, Aaron Hotchner is conflicted by his very essence. He is strong, he fears that strength. The fear isn't new but its overwhelming nag at the back of his head is. Fear of being a father, a strong father.

Hotch reaches out, gently. His movements are slow because he knows Reid spooks easily.

Reid frowns when his friend's hand finds his shoulder, the long fingers curling around his bony shoulder. Not fear of being a strong father but of being his own father. Striking fear. Reid knows it would be bad to tell Hotch his profile suggests otherwise. He's an alpha-male but he's not looming. Reid figures the last two inches or so of his height came in his twenties when he was already unsteady on his feet. Nothing about Hotch is threatening, he's scary because he's serious not because he throws himself around as a threat.

"You-You're hurt," Reid points to the blood on his friend's chest. "Hotch?" He pulls his hand back, turning his palm to face himself. There's blood on the tips of his fingers, wet. Warm. Reid pulls away when Hotch stumbles forward. The sudden movement startles him.

Hotch shakes his head, "I'm fine." His entire body lies. His blood seeps through the cotton of his dress shirt, spilling to the dirt in fat drops. "Reid-" he chokes on the simple name. "You have to get out of here, okay? Go-Go back to the-" Hotch falls to one of his knees. His hands wrap around his chest.

"Your ribs are broken," Reid deducts. Hotch's hands are wrapped like he's trying to keep himself held together. "You need a hospital." Reid kneels in the dirt beside him, afraid to touch him but certain he needs to do something. "Hotch?" Reid moves to touch him but he falls onto his side. "Hotch!"

Reid watches, hands hovering over his friend's chest as Hotch's eyes roll back into his head. "Help!" His voice joins the countless other agents. "Help! Someone please!" He takes a deep breath and puts pressure on the wound he can see.

He's crying, vaguely aware of his own body. Hotch is warm beneath his hands, living- breathing. He can't understand it. Gideon was leading the team. Reid did exactly what Hotch said to do, he didn't move, but Hotch still got hurt. All those people- they're dead.

It doesn't make any sense.

Reid sits by Hotch's bedside, legs pulled up onto the chair. He's reading from memory, speaking the words aloud for the benefit of his unconscious friend. Some coma patients can hear and if Hotch can, Reid hopes to make up for his shortcomings as an agent. An apology.

Reid is on his second book when Gideon steps into the room, leading Haley Hotchner in behind him.

"The baby-" Haley's hand is spread protectively over her small stomach. Hotch hadn't told them about a baby. Never slipped up- Reid frowns, he had Hotch pegged as the sympathetic pregnancy type. He reconsiders what he knows, eyes drifting over Haley Hotchner.

He's met her three times.

The pair, Hotch and Haley, interact as though they've known one another a lifetime. Hotch touches her like she's fabric falling between his fingers. He checks to see if she's really there. Above losing his own life, Hotch fears to lose her. Hotch's empathy is phenomenal, hence Reid's train of thought, but if Haley's pregnancy is high-risk he might hide it. Therefore protecting himself and an unborn child.

Haley is pale, anemia perhaps. Her nerves have stolen her charm, her southern accent accentuated thickly. "Aaron-" her eyes drift to Hotch in a way Reid knows means this is the first time Hotch has ever been critically injured. It's as if she can't recognize her husband. "It's like the baby knows something is wrong."

Gideon smiles, forced, and in that uneven way that he does when he can't even pretend to want to smile. "How are you, Haley?" Gideon touches her arm gently, distracting her from the still figure on the bed. "Aaron didn't tell me you're expecting."

Haley smiles in that sheepish nature she does, cheeks turning a bright red. "He's-He's very private." As soon as her statement is made she blushes even brighter, "but I guess you already know that."

Gideon soothes her with a charming smile. That half-chuckle he does for the sake of flattering. "How are you and the baby?" His guilt ebbs in his tone shifting. "Holding in there?"

Haley's eyes shift again to Hotch, to his unmoving form.

If Reid knows this is unnatural, if he can feel his chest squeezing tighter each moment that Hotch's chest rises with the manufactured breath of a vent then Haley must be dying.

"The baby keeps moving, kicking." Haley rubs her stomach, that fear Reid predicted spread between her fingers. "It's like it can tell something's wrong."

"Actually, in the womb, rather, the placenta, babies can detect chemicals that the mother secretes." Reid taps the tips of his fingers together, eyes wandering as his info-dumping takes over. "Given the situation, your stress hormones are probably being emitted at a high rate. Hormones like cortisol and catecholamines are commonly released which means through your placenta your unborn child is feeling distressed." Reid glances at Hotch, "it very well may feel an… absence."

Haley smiles at him, the same smile Hotch shoots his way when he info dumps in the bullpen. "Spencer," she says his name like it's the most normal thing in the world but her voice cracks. He can feel it in his own sternum. "I didn't see you there," there's that crack again. Tears are filling her eyes- tears Hotch placed there but no through this accident.

Reid wonders what Hotch has told his wife. Does she know about his mother? His father? Or is it more along the lines of how Reid sees Hotch has a paternal figure? It's her hormones speaking but it's interesting all the same.

After two weeks, Gideon stopped coming.

Hotch's hospital room was filled with the mechanical silence of the machine around him. In… out… It's hypnotic and sometimes Reid comes in to sit and listen. To just be close to his friend. He closes his eyes and goes over the conversations he had with Hotch. The rhythm and familiarity bring him peace and in return, he reads aloud to Hotch. He always picks books Hotch would like.

The Count of Monte Cristo. The Illustrated Man. Catch-22. They aren't the kind of books he reads normally but he imagines Hotch would like them. Stories about ragtag groups, heroes, and dystopian styles mysteries. It feels real.

"Aaron?"

Three days ago the doctors made the decision to pull him out of the medically induced coma. The medicine was pulled but they were on day four with no sign of movement. Haley thought he might have squeezed her hand but when the doctor came in Hotch couldn't follow oral command. He recoiled from the nurse who tested his Babinski reflex but that was his only improvement.

Reid starts to get paranoid.

He spends the fifth-day pacing. When Haley takes her lunch break, offering him- per their schedule- a sandwich Reid doesn't even shake himself from his thoughts. He walks the space of Hotch's room over and over, the point his converse should be leaving racing stripes or at the very least have worn down the cheap tile. He just keeps thinking. Over and over he has replayed his last interaction with Hotch. What he could have done faster. What he should have realized.

"Would you sit down?"

Reid stumbles, caught by surprise by the sudden intrusion. He turns to the bed, like a deer in headlights. He's paler than Hotch, spooked.

Hotch smiles, crooked. It's goofy, carefree- he's still very high on painkillers. "Look like you've seen a ghost," he rasps. His face pinches, body shaking as his coughs jostle his head. The monitors take note, Hotch's heart rate accelerating as his pain does.

It takes Reid a moment but his brain catches up to his shock and he moves to Hotch's side table. A nurse had left a pitcher of water and what was once a bucket of ice but it is now just a fist sized clump of ice water. He panics, not sure which will help the most. Hotch keeps coughing, his monitors getting louder and louder.

"Hotch?" Reid's hands tremble, the cup extended between them.

Hotch can't take it. His body is curling up in pain, he's unaware of Reid and the cup.

It goes against everything being screamed in Reid's head but he steps closer to Hotch. He places his hand on Hotch's shoulder and places the straw in the cup to Hotch's lips. "It'll help." He holds the cup as Hotch takes a sip. He doesn't say anything when Hotch spits some out, sputtering as the water slowly works to soothe his cough. "Not too much," he pulls it away before Hotch can empty the cup.

Hotch swallows thickly, laying back on the gurney. His movement is uncoordinated but he wipes his chin with the back of his hand, smiling at Reid. "Thanks Spencer," he blinks slowly, the medicine dragging him down. "You here…" he mumbles, voice dragging off. "You should- should go home… sleep."

Reid shifts from foot to foot, anxious. A part of him recognizes Hotch's half order but if he's asleep?

What he doesn't know can't hurt him.

"Listen?" Hotch slurs. His eyes are closed but Reid gets the feeling that he's still very aware of Reid's presence.

Reid smiles, "I'm listening, sir."

Hotch gives a small nod, " 's good." Hotch raises his hand, groggily looking at Reid. "You okay?" In the back of his mind, he can't recall much. His head is pounding but he remembers needing to get to Reid. Stumbling, searching- "Hurt?"

Reid shakes his head, "I'm okay Hotch."

Hotch lets out a shaky sigh, finally easing down. Under his breath he mumbles, " 's good."

"I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do." -F. Scott Fitzgerald