Sat in a hospital waiting room was not the way Cecile had intended to spend the day after the case they had just worked. Pigs, why did it have to be pigs? The crossing of the boarder was smart on the UnSub's part, but the team drew the conclusions they needed to. However, they were already on another case. Rossi had mentioned something about it being local and some doctor who was being blackmailed or threatened, she couldn't remember.
Hotch, however, was out of contact as everyone tried calling him. But Cecile couldn't do much to help as she left her phone behind in her car. 'Miss Sallow?' A doctor called from one of the large rooms in front of her. Standing confidently, she approached the kind woman who ushered her into the space.
'Hello, I'm Fin, have you had a CT scan before?' A man suddenly asked from across the room.
'No, but I am familiar with them. Where's the gown?' Cecile asked curtly.
A robe was handed to her before a curtain was pulled in the corner to allow her to dress. The change of clothes was quick, and her items were left in the basket behind her as they then ushered her towards the large machine in the middle of the room. 'What do you do for a living, Ms Sallow?' He asked kindly as they prepared the machine for her.
'I'm with the FBI, this bruise is just from someone taking a corner too sharp. Not as interesting as most people would think,' Cecile replied cryptically as she was then ushered to lay down on the bed.
'FBI is exciting, let's just hope your training makes this scan a little easier,' Fin remarked before the set up was actually begun.
Despite spending nearly an hour in the room, the scan only lasted a few moments before she was allowed out to regroup. However, Cecile opted to take her things and take herself out of the hospital immediately. As she left, a bed suddenly rushed past her with someone in scrubs hunched over someone, red blotched over the person's white shirt. 'Derek Morgan. Works with the FBI,' one of the staff called as they rushed with the bed.
Snapping her head towards the bed, Cecile quickly began running after it. Her head began shaking, and her head hurt as she tried to keep up with them. However, at one set of doors she was stopped by a doctor. 'Ma'am, you can't go in there,' a woman informed her.
'No, you don't get it. He's a friend. Fuck!' Cecile called as she stepped back and sat down, the world spinning as she tried to regroup again. 'Derek Morgan is a colleague, I need to know how he's doing,' she muttered quietly.
Tapping her pockets for her phone, Cecile swore as she remembered that she left it in her car. While still shaking while the world span around her, the walls were pressed against as she stepped towards her car. It took a few stumbling tumbles before she managed to get to her car and pull her keys out. The centre console was rifled through until her phone was found and she sat in the passenger seat with tears in her eyes. Dialling his number, she prayed that he would pick up.
'Hey, how did the scan go? What's wrong?' Morgan asked quickly while a bell rang around him.
Sighing out and resting her head against the chair behind her, Cecile felt her whole body relax as she heard him talk. 'Fine, they didn't seem worried, but time will tell. I just needed to hear your voice. How is the case going?' She asked while staggering out of the car and locking it behind her.
'Fine, Prentiss and Reid are looking into possible people. I'm at the school. How far away are you?' Morgan asked.
'Oh, no. I'm feeling a bit funny. Won't be in today, but text me when the case is over, I want to know how it goes,' Cecile mentioned before hanging up.
Morgan might have been fine, but she couldn't understand why they had said his name. So, staggering to reception, the world span more as she relied on the counter to keep her upright. 'My name is Cecile Sallow with the FBI, someone you called Derek Morgan with the FBI was just brought in. I need to speak to someone about it,' she informed the receptionist while flashing her credentials.
'Of course, please take a seat. Someone will be out in a moment,' the woman soothed.
Finding a chair, Cecile rested her head against the wall while she waited for someone to visit her. After a long wait, someone took the seat beside her and cleared their throat. 'My name's Max, I was one of the nurses who brought Mr Morgan in, how can I help you?' A frail voice asked.
'It's not Morgan, I just spoke to him. It's someone else. What happened to the person who came in?' Cecile asked as her mind became clearer.
'A man in his late thirties or early forties came in following multiple stab wounds to his chest. There was some ID on him, I don't totally know how we got it, but I assume it was on his person. It was FBI credentials for a man named Derek Morgan,' Max explained warmly while handing over the identification that belonged to an FBI agent.
Scanning it over, Cecile puzzled over the piece for a moment before her eyes opened a fraction wider than before. 'Wait, uh, the man who came in. He wasn't bald and black was he? Tattoos and muscles for days, right?' She asked suddenly.
'No, he was white with dark hair. No tattoos that I could see, and he wasn't overly fit. Slightly above average at best,' Max replied confidently.
'Thank you, do you know how the man got here? If this is who I think it is, he doesn't normally let the victims survive. He was his own only known survivor,' Cecile rambled while trying to think of an explanation.
'I'm not sure. The trained nurses don't tell us training nurses much,' Max confessed nervously. Pulling her phone out, Hotch's phone was called yet again. With no response, Cecile angrily sighed out and composed a text.
Aaron Hotchner, why aren't you responding?
Morgan's creds have come up someone's been stabbed
I'm starting to get worried so just tell me that you're safe
Flinging her phone beside her, Cecile suddenly stopped Max as he tried to stand, his eyes growing wide as he watched her fumble for something in her pocket. 'Do any of these men match the description?' She asked, pulling a small picture out of her purse. The team were sat in a field, flowers were snuck into Reid's hair when he wasn't paying attention. What the image didn't show was the police tape a few feet behind the photographer, an unknown number of bodies had been buried beside a river bank.
'Yeah, the man in the suit. I think he was wearing that suit when he came in too, pure black,' Max remarked before Cecile bit her bottom lip as goosebumps ran along her skin.
'Can you take me to the room he will be in after the surgery?' Cecile requested quietly.
Once inside, the main lights were flicked off, only a few glowing buttons and screens from waiting machines lit the room as Cecile checked her phone again, hoping and praying for a call from Hotch. Burying her head in her hands, she lost track of the hours as her head swam with her pulsating headache.
Pulled from her own thoughts, Cecile jumped to her feet as the doors opened and the light was flicked on by incoming staff who were pushing and pulling a bed with a sleeping form on it. She stepped out of their way while leaning against the wall for support. As most of them left, a soft hum rang from the machines as she stepped up to the bed.
Hotch was pale, but his chest was rising and falling like it always did. His face was perfectly still as Cecile's cold hands slowly dropped to caress his cheek, feeling his cold skin. 'The patient is doing well, he will pull through. None of the wounds were too fatal, and the surgery was relatively simple, considering. But he lost a lot of blood. Give him some time to come around,' a man in scrubs informed her before quietly leaving the pair alone.
'Oh, Hotchner. What are we going to do with you?' Cecile asked as her eyes rimmed red, scanning his face and body as she fought back her trembling breaths. 'You weren't meant to get hurt. I'm the one who runs their mouth and gets themselves in trouble with bad guys. Not you,' she murmured as a tear dropped and she practically fell back into the chair behind her.
Holding his hand, Cecile found her mind growing hazy as the room grew darker around her. However, the dark world became bright again as a loud shout suddenly startled her awake, hands cupping her ears as pain still rang through her head, though it hurt less than before the nap. 'Daddy,' Jack yelled as Haley helped him onto the hospital bed.
Feeling the cold on his right hand already, Hotch didn't look at Cecile who had just woken up as he placed a kiss on Jack's head. Trying not to intrude on the private moment, Cecile quietly stood and tried to blink away the blur in her eyes while walking away. 'Who are you?' Haley asked sternly.
Cecile and Haley never met, mainly because by the time she joined the team, the marriage issues had already begun. As well as that, Cecile didn't make it a habit of seeing them out of work, that made things muddled for her mind. 'Oh, I'm Cecile Sallow. It's lovely to meet you, I've heard so many good things,' she replied quietly while making her way out of the room.
'Oh, you're the brat. I've heard about you,' Haley remarked, and Cecile just sadly nodded before making it out of the door.
'Hey, how did you know he was here?' Prentiss asked almost immediately, failing to see the look of pain that ran across her face.
'I heard them say Morgan's name. I poked my nose in. How is everyone? Where's JJ and Reid?' Cecile asked while huffing and taking a seat.
Finally noticing her scrunched eyes, Prentiss took a seat beside Cecile. 'Don't dramatically react, it's not bad. It was just in the knee. But Reid got shot,' she quietly confessed.
Processing the information Prentiss had just given her, Cecile soon ran her hands across her face, careful not to touch her bruise. And then a laugh escaped her lips, the team turned to see what she was laughing at, but they were only left to believe that she was insane. 'Hotch was stabbed by a serial killer, Reid was shot by a blackmailer, I am being tested for blood clots on my brain, our pets heads are falling off,' she joked while trying to stretch out the aches created by falling asleep so uncomfortably.
'I don't think now is the best time to be quoting Dumb and Dumber,' Morgan mentioned with a smirk. 'Hotch said he doesn't remember much, barely anything,' he added quietly.
Before a snarky retort could be made, Haley stepped out with Jack at her side while tears dropped to the floor, her hand furiously wiping them away. Her short hair wobbled slightly as she offered a smile to the team, however, as Cecile smiled and nodded, offering Jack a kind wink, Haley's smile dropped as she then turned her back on the team and began talking to Jack. 'I'll talk to Hotch,' Cecile mumbled, trying to escape the awkward air.
When in the room, Hotch's red eyes were spotted and Cecile bit her tongue, hoping it was enough to stop her from making a comment that might upset him. 'You look worse than I do,' he commented before sniffing sadly.
'You clearly haven't seen yourself. Or you're just addicted to lying today, the team said that you claimed not to remember anything from the attack. Now, I am not going to make you tell me the truth, but have the common decency to say you aren't ready to talk about it, or come up with some crazy lie. Like, the doctor cut out part of your brain and that was the part of your brain that stored the memory of what happened,' Cecile pointedly remarked while standing at the foot of his bed.
Laughing, and then stopping himself, Hotch clutched his torso painfully. Just outside the door, Cecile and Hotch turned in time to see the dark, angry look in Haley's eye as she heard his chuckle before she left with Sam. 'You must have had part of your brain removed as a kid, you are missing a lot of mental awareness,' he remarked with a smirk while struggling to sit up properly.
Cecile, too caught up by Haley, forgot to smile at Hotch's comment. 'I don't know what you said to her, but she hates me. And don't play coy, I know that look. You look guilty. And she called me a brat. Which means you have bitched about me to her. That's not fair, I have never bitched about you to anyone other than you,' she remarked while walking over to the empty chair where she sat again.
'Language, and I never called you a brat to her. You just look like one. And she is just hurting because of what is happening. Don't take it personally,' Hotch remarked with a gruff voice.
Standing slowly, leaning on the bed, Cecile carefully pushed his greasy hair off of his forehead before she pulled at the dark strands so that they were bunched in her palm. 'Don't tell me that you only ever told her about the times I hit on you. Did you at least say I talk like that to everyone? And did you mention all the times I offended you too? She probably thought I was trying to steal you,' she complained while tying his hair up in a ponytail that sat like a unicorn horn.
'You haven't sexualised me once today, perhaps it's because you know I'm too injured for anything romantic. Maybe you did mean everything you said,' Hotch teased.
'Oh, I wouldn't say I haven't sexualised you. I've just not said anything. For starters, that tongue of yours seems to be working just fine. I won't tell anyone if you don't,' Cecile retorted as she grabbed the jug of water and picked up one of the Q-tips, drenching the cotton and then gesturing it towards Hotch.
Hotch smirked before trying to take the Q-tip from Cecile, who smacked his hand away. 'I don't think it matters if you tell anyone. Haley cheated on me, this might be called making us even. But we're divorced so I guess I can't get even,' he confessed sadly.
Running the water across his lips, wetting his skin, Cecile's heart sank as she tried not to look at Hotch's eyes, his gaze heavily focused on her face. 'You never told me that,' she whispered.
'You never asked,' Hotch muttered as Cecile moved to wet the cotton again.
'Sorry for not asking specifics about your relationship,' Cecile sarcastically drawled. 'That's like asking someone if they have an innie or an outie. It's not something you ask,' she complained while gently punching his shoulder.
'You can't injure the patient,' Hotch retorted as his eyes slowly closed and Cecile took that as her sign to stop giving him water, his hand gently moving to pinch her stomach.
'I am also a patient. I had a CT scan today, for your information. And didn't your mother teach you not to pinch a woman's stomach? Just you wait until you're healed. I'm going to fuck you up. Until then, I will use psychological tactics,' Cecile teased as she wiped her hands down her clothes.
As Cecile wiggled to jump down from the side of the bed that she sat on, Hotch grabbed her arm and stopped her. 'Stop swearing, and stay with me, and tell me how the scan went. And I think psychological tactics count as gaslighting,' he rebutted groggily.
'Oh no, I didn't say I was going to gaslight you. I said that I was going to care for you. Stop putting words into my mouth. But my scan went well, results to come later,' Cecile replied with a chuckle.
Chuckling, Hotch's grasp on her arm fell as his hand rested in her lap. 'They must have been highly trained professionals if they managed to locate your three braincells,' he replied with a smirk. Her reply was a sharp jab to his face.
Silently, Cecile began playing with the strands of hair that weren't long enough for the hairband when she noticed the tears well under Hotch's lids as his chin began to silently wobble. 'Hey, Hotchner, whatever happens, we'll get through it. I won't let you drown because of this,' Cecile soothed as her other hand grabbed his hand, rubbing circles into his palm.
Haley is not a fan. Awkward!!!!