I don't know if I actually lose consciousness. I mean, I must, because when I'm blinking through blurry vision, I don't see Rachel's outline. It's too blurry to make out much though. I try to roll over, but my hands are locked together. My head lulls. I force myself onto my knees, squinting. My purse is on the ground, rolled off at some point in our scuffling. I crawl over to it. There are zip ties on my hands. Stupid fucking bitch.

I fumble for my phone. The battery is still out so I struggle to put it in. Thankfully she let me have my hands tied together in front of me. I manage to force the battery in there and power it on. It's not any darker out. I can't focus on the thin hands on my watch.

The phone powers on. I unlock it, a struggle worse than the fucking fight. My head is pounding. I can't hold my eyes open to look at the bright screen without wincing. Finally, it's booted and on.

I can't call Spencer. He's going to fucking kill me, just like I'd kill him. Instead, I call Garcia. She'll be able to track my location anyway, since I'm barely clawing into consciousness.

Rachel's blood is beneath my fingernails.

Garcia picks up as soon as I press the call button.

"Oh thank God," she says. "Where are you? Wait, just give me a second to get your location. Are you okay?"

"Is the team profiling me right now?"

"I mean, Colette lovely, I don't think you need to worry about that right now. You... you sound... oh my God I'm sending your location to the team now. I last had you like three miles from where you are now."

"Penelope, I don't feel good," I swallow, sick threatening to spill past my lips.

"They'll be with you in the next fifteen minutes," she says. "Cars can't drive through the trees to get to you, or they'd be there sooner, I promise."

"Markus Schneider is in the basement of 26 Weber Avenue," I tell her, before I forget. That was important. "Tell Hotch that, right now. Otherwise, I'll hang up and call him myself."

"Honey, it can wait."

I grin and it hurts. My eyes shut, "you, Penelope Garcia, are telling me you can't multi-task?"

"Fine," Garcia says. "I'll tell him."

The sound of her voice hurts my head. I still hold the phone in my hands, but then I roll onto my back. Eyes closed, just the sound of Garcia's voice. She tries to keep me talking, clearly. Maybe I'm concussed. It's probably best I don't sleep, but everything hurts. My head especially, but my arms too.

"What happened?" she asks.

I don't move, "Rachel escaped."

"And you're hurt," Garcia says. "I'm calling a bus."

"I'm fine."

"Can you tell me how you are hurt?"

"Head," I manage. "Blunt force, I think it was my gun. You sound so loud. Please be quiet."

"Now, you know me. I can't help but talking your ear off. So, your head is hurt. Anything else?"

"Garcia, I don't want to talk."

"Well, I can keep my mouth shut but you can't. So, tell me a story. Oh, in French. I don't practice it enough."

I just want her to shut up. I know I'm in the deepest of shit so I don't hang up else I incur Garcia's further rage. I do as she says though my head throbs through it. I just talk about Carnaval, the ice sculptures, the maple syrup, my freezing toes and live music. Surely, Garcia's French isn't good enough to keep up with mine, and I guess maybe that makes it easier to talk about. Maybe I could tell Spencer everything in French if he didn't have an eidetic memory. As it stands, he can learn to translate it later. I can't take that risk.

I hear thrashing in the woods. My name being called.

"Bouchard!"

Morgan's voice.

"Here!" I shout. My voice is loud. "Garcia, they are here!"

"Okay," she says. "I'll let you go, lovely."

"Au revoir," I reply. "Je t'aime."

"Je t'aime aussi."

The dial tone beeps just as Morgan pops into my vision above me. He's too blurry. I close my eyes and lean over.

"Cole, Cole!" his voice echoes around me. "Where's the bus?"

I shouldn't sleep. I don't, but I can't keep my eyes open. My skull feels like it's going to burst. My body moves and suddenly I'm lifted off the ground. My stomach twists.

"Colette!" Reid calls my name. He is so so far away from me. I can't hear any of the other words, but I know he's still shouting for me.

I moan. Is this how Stéphane feels? Understanding, but not able to articulate it out?

"Spen," I manage, mumbling his name. I taste copper. I'm bleeding. I mean, that much should have been a given, but I hadn't noticed. I can't feel it trickling down me. "I'm okay."

Morgan keeps moving. I close my eyes, not fighting the sleep anymore. I'm safe.

~~~

My eyes are stuck together. I come to and the world around me is so bright. I wince, screwing my eyes shut tighter. My mouth is still so dry.

I try to pull myself up, eyes still shut, and I feel warm hands on my arm. I lean into the touch and open my eyes.

There's Spencer, wide eyed and staring at me. One of my eyes won't open all the way. God, I must have a black eye. For fuck's sake, I was pistol whipped.

"Don't talk," Hotch says. My head swings over. He's sitting at a chair by the foot of my bed. "Reid."

His grip loosens on me. I grab his arm, holding it there, squeezing it tightly. My head shakes, "no."

Hotch is still wearing his suit. Spencer's not. He's got on his button up, sleeves cuffed, shirt smeared with blood by the lapel. I'll pay to have it drycleaned. Or a new one.

"The section chief is coming," Hotch explains. "We can't talk about what happened until she gets here. Then, it's on the record. Reid won't be allowed to stay."

"But he can stay for now, right?" I look over at him.

We haven't talked. We haven't talked since the fight, since all of this. I feel sick to my stomach. For once, I want him here. He's going to get the same events as Hotch and I want him to know it. Surely, they've talked, and they both know I've made up some things. At the least, they've gathered I hid the photos of Reid from Hotch. God, I'm an idiot. No more lying. Maybe even no more omitting.

We stay there, in silence. Spencer holds my arm. My hands are on his. My watch is gone and I'm wearing a hospital gown. I vaguely recall it all. Getting here, via the ambulance. It all feels so hazy. Thick like basement walls, far away like Québec. I don't want to dig through it.

They put me in a hospital gown before the MRI. I was conscious for that. I don't know why I can't grip it though. It reminds me of Australia, of blackout drunk nights, holed memories, waking in a bed that isn't mine without my clothes on. I shiver. Reid runs a hand down my back.

I don't dare speak to him.

Section Chief Erin Strauss walks in and Spencer stands, pulling back from me.

"Well," she says. "Really, Agent Hotchner."

"They haven't spoken," Hotch nods to Spencer.

He pulls away and walks out of the room. My hand twitches, the ghost of a haunting. I want him to stay but I don't dare reach.

Strauss takes Spencer's chair. It's wrong for her to sit in it, but I tell them everything.

The email, what matters still written on my arm. In my handwriting, which helps, although I guess they can't know when I wrote it. Strauss already knows about the stalking, of course. Clearly, she has doubts about my honesty. Why did I take a long lunch? Why did I delete the email? Why didn't I immediately report it? What in God's name was I thinking walking into the forest with a dangerous and evasive fugitive?

And I outline it all. Every part of it. Honestly. The email, knowing she wanted to meet, needing to bring a gun but worried about endangering anyone if we set up a sting operation. Lying to Reid, getting the gun, running around town to avoid the cameras. The meet up, the agreement, the beating.

I leave out the part about asking Rachel to say she had a camera. Instead, in my story she says she'll give Markus Schneider up for negotiating with the DA.

"And she just told you Schneider's location rather than insist on meeting with the district attorney?" Strauss asks. "And you didn't find that suspicious."

"Well, before I really had time to think about it, she fought me," I explain. "I got a few punches in, but she got the gun. Pistol whipped me."

"And remarkably, you don't have a concussion," Strauss says.

"Yes, we are very lucky," Hotch agrees. "SA Bouchard could be dead."

Strauss leans back in her seat. The air in the room feels heavier. He's right. I don't like that he is right. Rachel was clearly pulling her punches, because she could have killed me. Not just intentionally, but accidentally. Without meaning to, or wanting to. A blow like that could have straight up killed me. I'm lucky my entire skull isn't fractured.

I don't think even Strauss really thinks I set this up, because I'm not being properly interrogated by counterterrorism. As stupid as this whole thing was, I would have to be completely moronic to orchestrate a plan that could kill me on Rachel's behalf.

Finally, Strauss stands up. She offers me a hand.

"Thank you, Bouchard," she says while I shake her hand. Her grip is so tight. "Thanks to your sacrifices, we have apprehended Markus Schneider. We're going to continue the investigation into Rachel Kwak's whereabouts. Should she reach out to you again, I hope you have learned to tell your supervisor rather than avoid detection."

With that, she leaves the room. The door doesn't even shut behind her. Spencer props it open, staring at me.

Hotch doesn't look back at him. Instead, he stares me down.

"Do you remember when I said you were good at calculating risk?" Hotch asks. "In New Orleans, you burst down a motel door specifically when I told you not to do that. I hope you did not learn that your plans would always succeed."

I swallow, "she didn't have a gun. After that, I made several errors in judgement. First, entering the woods. Then, shaking her hand."

"Your errors of judgement began when you called Reid and lied to him, rather than immediately notifying me," Hotch stares me down. "They continued when you deliberately avoided surveillance. Walking into the forest is one mistake in what I could only describe as a comedy of errors. You are lucky it was a comedy and not a tragedy."

I look at my lap. I know.

"Anthrax," Spencer says. It's so quiet, almost a squeak of a word, and so brief that I might have imagined it, for a second. He rarely just says one word.

Hotch looks at me. He stands up.

"You aren't suspended," Hotch says. "But I'm once again going to suggest you take a few days off. At least until the swelling is down. Also, you are going to have a mandatory psychiatric evaluation before I let you out into the field again."

I just blink. So, every other bitch can make calculated errors of judgement but me. Fucking, Reid alone. He can use drugs and still be in the field. He can become a hostage of a cult and decide to avoid evacuation. He can get exposed to anthrax. Only when he's shot and on crutches, like today, is he not allowed in the field, and even then, only for a short time.

And he was in the field, looking for me.

That's when I notice it. He's not on crutches right now. He's bracing himself against the door still. His crutches aren't even in the room.

"If you want me on your team, why are you singling me out?" I ask.

Hotch blinks, "it's because I want you on my team, Bouchard. If Strauss catches one little misstep-" he closes his mouth, ducking his head. Hotch stands. Without another word, he exits the room.

I lean back against the headboard. Spencer makes his way into the room, one arm against the wall. He didn't do that when he left. I don't think I even registered a limp.

"Where are your crutches?" I ask, as he finally sits down across from me.

Spencer looks down at his leg. He reaches down, thumbs pressing on the tendons below his knee.

"I left them in the park," he says. "I couldn't really get into the trees with them, and I saw Morgan kneeling over next to you. You weren't... you didn't answer him. You weren't saying anything."

With a leg like that, I'm surprised he managed to get close at all. The cars weren't far, I don't think. It's all thick.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I thought I had her. I thought..."

There's no other words to justify it. I can't. How can I explain that I ran into the woods to, what essentially amounted to, confront Rachel for stalking me and orchestrating my brother's car crash when I'm not entirely convinced she did either? Even in my head I sound like a nutcase. Instead, I reach my hands up. My eye is completely swollen, nearly shut. I wince, touching a slice in my face. Spencer grabs my purse off the ground and digs through it, finding my compact. He opens it, passing it to me. His hands are shaking.

"It doesn't look good," he says, quietly.

I open it and flinch. My face is red. Cleaned though, someone has gone it and wiped away the blood that surely dried on my face. Headwounds bleed a lot, I remind myself. Not only is my eye swollen shut, but my face is split open, stitched back together. The pistol whipping did a fucking number on me. Really, I should be concussed. One more reason I'm Bastien, since we are miraculously impervious to head injuries. Thick skulled siblings.

"I called Caro and Bastien," he keeps talking. "I didn't know what to do. Caro stopped by. Hotch said she couldn't stay. She's still in the hospital though."

At this point, I'm not ready to meet Caro. She is going to give me fucking Hell, maybe let the whole thing spill in front of Spencer.

"Was she... with Stéphane out," I swallow. "She's my medical proxy, isn't she?"

Spencer nods, "thankfully they didn't have to make any hard decisions. It was a very clear pathway of treatment. The cuts will be better by the end of the week, the bruises might take a bit longer. You're... you're in..."

He stops. His throat goes tight. I watch as his Adam's apple bobs. I peel the blankets off of me. Spencer twists his head away from me, and covers his mouth with the back of his hand. I clamp my jaw tight as I pull myself off the bed. Spencer doesn't look at me. I kneel down in front of him and he lets out one solitary sob. I take his hand in mine.

"Is this what it's like?" he glances at me with glassy eyes, voice still muffled. "Every time I'm... whenever I end up here, this is what it's like for you, isn't it? I've never... I can't really think of a time I've ever been as scared. You were lying on the dirt. I thought you might be..."

I trace my fingers over the back of his knuckles. My wrists are still red, skin split open from where the zip ties dug into my flesh. Pen is still on my arm. My face is, well, I'm just glad I don't have to look at it.

Spencer drops down from the chair next to me on the ground. His chest shudders as I pull him in tightly against me. I know that terror, so sharp and acute and all consuming. His abduction, so terrifying I had a panic attack, I couldn't breathe, before we were together, before I really even enjoyed his company. Most of the other times, he's been conscious, able to communicate, death on the horizon but not there.

We hold each other, crouching on the ground of the hospital, me in just a gown, him in my arms. I stroke his back. He holds me like a breath, like he's underwater and letting go means he'll drown.

And I feel like shit.

~~~~~

Originally, these chapters were laid out differently, and half of this one was attached to the last one, but then the last one actually was half attached to the one before it, and I'm much happier with the current division (I just wrote the whole thing in one sitting, so I just entered new chapters when it felt like the stakes had increased, but I think this is a better layout of increasing stakes? I'm not sure if that makes sense).

ANYWAY, what are we thinking? And next chapter is big. HUGE. Predictions? Concerns? Bills for therapy? Let me know!