When I wake, I hear something scratching at the key slot. He's there, just on the other side. My heart pounds so hard I think it also breaks one of my ribs.

The trunk door opens and I rip the knife out of my ankle and push forward to stab into His torso.

Morgan jumps back as I swing. My body follows the moment, throwing me half out of the trunk. I fold over, catching myself with one arm on the metal lip. Above me, stands Morgan, with his jaw slack and eyes wide.

Spencer. There's Spencer just beside him. In a grey button up with the sleeves rolled past his elbow. Tears are strung down his face, snot under his nose, amber eyes wet and red and staring at me.

The knife scratches against the back of the car as I drop it.

"You're alive!" Spencer leaps forward and rushes me. I reach up and wrap my arms around him as he bends over the trunk to scoop me. He sobs into my shoulder, yanking my torso up. The rest of my body is dead weight behind me, my bad ankle dragging against the other, the knife shaving off skin. "Fuck, fuck, you're alive!"

"You're here," I manage. It's all I can think to manage. Spencer made it. He caught up to me, finally, after I was being pulled away for so long.

Morgan helps, lifting my feet to help me out of the car. Spencer cradles me in his arms, trying to hoist my body up to him. He feels so warm against my torso. So fucking hot. Not just his eyes, warm like dying embers. His body is like lava. He thinks I'm all heat, but it's him.

And I'm cold. Not like snow, that melts so easily. Not quite even like an ice sculpture, although I am rigid too. Like I'm in rigor mortis.

It clicks. I'm a corpse.

"I'm..." I feel my eyelids growing heavy. "I think I'm bleeding out."

And I don't have a chance to fight the unconsciousness. It takes me without my permission.

~~~

My heart thunders awake. I go to reach a hand up and massage my chest but there's something obstructing me.

"Colette."

I roll my head to the side, twisting it. My lips feel numb as I open the. I lick my bottom lip, eyelids fluttering open.

"Hey," Spencer is in front of me. Blood has smeared across the bottom of his grey shirt, and he's sweat through the pits. "How are you?"

My hand is in his. I reach forward with the other, the bad one, and try to grab his shirt.

"You're... you're bleeding," I whisper.

He swallows, squeezing my hand tighter against his.

"It's your blood, Cole."

Right. On the wrist he holds there is a hospital bracelet. I've been brought to the hospital. I shut my eyes again, livid at the brightness. It was so dark in the trunk. How long was I in there? I think it was still night when they pulled me out, but my memory, well, I'm no Spencer.

"How long was I out?" I ask, squeezing his hand.

"Seven hours."

Spencer hasn't answered

I twist my head at the sound of Bastien's voice, staring at my baby brother. He looms over me at the foot of my bed. Hoodie from his college, stubble that I didn't know he could grow, and dark eyes. I twist my head, to where Caro, Stéphane, and Estelle all sit as well. All with messy hair, sweat clothes, and weary eyes. I try to pull myself upright and Spencer leans over. Gently, he strokes my forehead.

"The team is doing paperwork in the waiting room," his voice is quiet. "They can wait for your statement."

"What were you thinking?" Caro snaps from beside me. "You should have waited with Stéphane. You should have waited with Stéphane."

My eyes migrate to my twin brother. There are deep and solid bags under his eyes too. They all look like fucking shit, actually. You'd think they were taped down in the back of the car behind me.

Stéphane lifts himself up, shaking as he stumbles closer to the bed. He collapses next to me on his knees and reaches forward. He squeezes my hand tightly in his and bends over and just sobs. I let him hold me.

"You found me," I look over at Spencer.

"Luc had a phone too," Spencer explains, smiling down at me. There are tears in his eyes too.

"What happened?" I ask.

"You were stabbed, shot, and beaten, obviously," Caro glowers at Bastien, and he raises his hands in defence. Caro stomps to the doorway and stares at me. "All of you are idiots. I'm getting a doctor."

She steps into the hallway. Bastien stares down at me, leaning in.

"It is a little badass."

Caro pops back in the doorway and glares daggers. I'm happy I was stabbed with a knife and not her gaze, "we agreed not to encourage her."

"I'm not going to lie!" Bastien throws up his hands. "It was badass and it's not like she caused this!"

Caro grabs him and drags him into the hallway again.

Beside me, Stéphane's sobs slow. He lets go, and Estelle moves forward, helping him upright too. She tries to smile, but tears meet her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispers. "Thank you for trying to protect us. Him."

I smile back at her, reaching my own hand toward her. Estelle leans forward and squeezes it, before pulling back into her chair beside Stéphane.

Spencer doubles over at the side of the bed, resting his chin on my shoulder. He whispers, just for me, "I'm so glad you are okay."

I twist toward him and kiss him on the top of his head.

"Is He here?" I murmur.

Spencer twists to look up at me. "Who?" His eyes slip over my face, searching. Then, he shakes his head, "No, he... Colette, they both died. He was dead when we got there."

My heart thumps. He's extraordinarily dead.

When the doctor returns, I find out all the things that are broken in my body. They did surgery on my ankle. I'm extraordinarily lucky there was no nerve damage. My Achilles tendon was partially severed, though not completely. I won't be able to walk for a long time. Wish we had kept Spencer's crutches, but oh well. I have two broken ribs, a bruised kidney, torn muscle in my arm from the shrapnel wound, and miraculously, no concussion.

Bastien makes me fill out six different lottery tickets.

Then, I give my statement to the team. I don't think they are going to ask, but I have to give it in front of Strauss and Morgan at least, as my boss and his boss. My siblings and Spencer were all interviewed while I was unconscious. They aren't invited in, not that I want them there. The details, those are... my siblings don't need to hear it. But the team helped, and I just want them to know from my side, what happened. How I fought.

Hotch recommends we have Spencer sit out, but I tug him when he tries to leave. That is how the entire team, Garcia included, find out.

I joked to her that I didn't think she ever left the Bureau, except the one time she was shot. And that's how I find out I'm not in DC, but at a hospital in Albany. Everyone has stayed here, waiting for me to wake up. My siblings came all this way for me.

With my siblings in the waiting room and my hospital room crowded with half a dozen FBI agents, I start at the beginning. Not the stalking, although I'm sure it would have been fine if I started there. The actual true beginning.

"The 18th of May 1996, when I was fifteen and living in Québec, I was fighting with my then-boyfriend Luc Levesque and my mother/ Stéphane's best friend-" I hesitate and then say his name, "-invited me to come over for dinner. I didn't know his parents were out of town. He drugged me and tapped me to the floor of his basement where he raped me for several hours. Whenever I would gain consciousness and try to fight, he would knock me out again either with drugs or physical force. In the morning, Stéphane was running around to ask if anyone had seen me and get a search party going, and he stopped at his friend's house. According to Stéphane, he got a weird feeling and found me in the basement. He saved me and was injured in the process. Then, there was the trial. His friend went to jail, but my family packed up and moved back to New Hampshire, changing our names and deciding to move on."

I stare at Spencer the entire time. There are so many people in the room, so many colleagues, and I don't care. If I stay or quit, if I get a PhD or become the director of the FBI itself, it doesn't matter. In a room full of people, I'm making eye contact with him and him alone. Just us. A story for him.

And then I explain the rest. The stalking, asking Luc Levesque for help. I explain Stéphane's brain injury, how I assumed yesterday Stéphane was referring to Luc Levesque as the stalker. Perhaps he meant Luc could help me, or maybe even he just wanted to help me look for the culprit. In excruciating detail, I cover the specifics. What exactly happened in the garage, what I discovered on the road and my rationale. The gas station, and then the officer he mowed down. I even explicitly tell them I was willing to end my life to avoid enduring his hands again, and that is how the car crashed. I slammed his head into the dash. I climbed into the trunk of the car myself, keys with me so he couldn't pry me out later. Ripping out the knife because I expected to see him, not Morgan or Spencer.

And then, I get asked questions.

Only from Strauss, and only to further clarify. Which parking lot did he pull over in when I puked? What time was it when I passed the bookstore? Was I aware Luc Levesque had a phone on his person? Do I know if anyone other than myself and him touched the gun that they recovered under the driver's seat. I don't even mind answering.

Eventually, they are done. Strauss speaks to Morgan and Hotch privately in the hallway.

"You did good, kid," Rossi says, sitting in the spot that once was Stéphane's.

"How are you feeling?" JJ's expression is soft as she looks at me.

I chuckle, and it becomes a wheeze, "like I'd rather get pistol whipped by Rachel."

"God no," Garcia says. "No jinxing it. No way, Bouchard. You'd be banned from the field forever, if it were up to me."

"I've never been hurt in the field," I correct. "It's always went I'm out of office, actually."

Prentiss sighs, her gaze moving from Spencer and then to me, "you two cannot catch a break!"

Spencer squeezes my hand again.

I shrug. This kind of feels like the break right here. He's dead. He's dead and everyone knows. No eyes, not those of my siblings or the team, glance at me with pity. Well, that's an overexaggeration. Stéphane, obviously does look at me like I'm going to break. If Caro ever finds out I intentionally flipped a car over and pulled a knife out of my ankle, she'd call me an idiot. Unfortunately, Bastien does think the whole thing makes me look strong.

Some of it is true. A shitty thing happened to me right under my brother's nose. Not all of my decisions were the best course of action to ensure I lived. Simultaneously, I look fragile and strong, in need of smothering and radioactive. Requiring a delicate touch, but a lot of hands.

Some of it was strength. Willpower to focus, command over my body. The physicality of stabbing him, of slamming him, of flipping the car over. Far more of it was sheer dumb luck. I think the team better than anyone else knows that.

I don't like the word victim, but maybe I don't like the label of survivor either. Maybe I did survive, but only slightly by my own doing. In another world, I die in the car before the team gets to me. At another job, I don't have the team coming at all and without the safety planning I'm already dead. Women who die aren't less strong or less smart than me inherently. They're just less lucky.

Lying here, in a fucking hospital once again, shot and stabbed and bruised, I'm not alone. My siblings are still in the cafeteria, my coworkers are all around me, and Spencer still holds my hand. I've never been so fucking fortunate.

~~~~~

Okay, only now will I reveal that there are two more chapters and an epilogue. You've made it so far! But ahhh! Did you have a favourite part of this? A favourite implication? How do you think Cole has changed/will change moving forward? It gives me so much joy and motivation, all of your comments.