Stay with me

Chapter 8- Hour 3

They'd decided that sitting on the cold tiled floor to play their games wasn't going to cut it anymore, so they came up with the idea of pushing their beds closer together so that they had something more comfortable to sit on. They huddled round Emily's bed which housed the cards, Derek on her right and Alex on her left, with Rossi's bed placed sideways along the bottom. Now much more content with their seating arrangements, Emily dealt out the cards. They decided to play a simple game of poker, and they were using some of the many little objects Garcia had gifted them such as pens, pencils, teddies, bouncy balls, glow things and whatever else they could find as their wagering chips. 

As Emily was dealing out the cards, she had to pause as she got round the group for the third time, something wasn't right. She could barely make out the hands in front of her. Her vision had clouded over like a in impenetrable fog on a wintery night; she tried her best to ignore it and continue dealing as best she could, but the widely misplaced cards let her down, resulting in some very odd looks from her teammates- not that she could see them. She scrunched up her eyes and opened them again, trying to clear the mist from her eyes, but was unsuccessful.

"Em, you okay?" asked Derek softly.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, I think I've just got something in my eye," she lied.

"Here let me see," Derek said moving his hand to her face and sitting up to look in her eyes, "I can't see anything," he shrugged.

Emily returned her gaze to the spot in front of her and put her hand to the bed trying to inconspicuously feel for where she put the rest of her cards, several seconds passed before her fingers found them and her face blushed knowing that the team were likely sat watching the embarrassing ordeal.

Rossi frowned watching her. He raised his hand and slowly waved it back and forth infant of her eyes- no reaction.

"Emily can you see?" Rossi questioned concernedly.

Emily shook her head in reply.

Derek jumped from the bed and ran to push the big red button on the wall while Alex moved over to Emily, inspecting her eyes. "Have you experienced any other symptoms?" she quizzed.

"I got a bit dizzy before when I went to get the cards, but I think it was just because I haven't eaten, I'm sure I'm fine," she brushed off, wanting to not have so much attention on herself.

Only minutes later, three doctors burst through the sliding doors asking what had happened, and Derek explained the situation as they each put their gloves and masks on. They came into the glass room and gathered round Emily, asking her questions about what she could see and using different instruments to check her over. Derek, Alex and Rossi stepped back to the glass, giving them room to work, watching as the doctors surrounded their friend so that they could barely see her, each of their hearts beating rapidly and stomachs feeling queasy at the thought of what this could mean. 

After several minutes of prodding and probing Emily, the doctors addressed the rest of the team, "she hasn't completely lost her vision but it is severely blurred, and may be for some time. We can't be sure if this is symptoms from the gas or not yet because the lab techs are still working on identifying the strain, but as soon as they do we can test her blood. Until then there's not much we can do. Just keep an eye on her and call us if anything changes." With that, they abruptly left the quarantine room and only silence remained . Nobody quite knew what to say after that- they didn't know whether to be relieved or scared shitless. On one hand, the doctors had gone and had only spent a maximum of 10 minutes in the room, which would suggest it's nothing serious- otherwise they would have stayed. But on the other hand, Emily has presented with two of the symptoms of the gas and still cannot see. 

"Uhh, guys?..." she sounded, still sat on the bed, unaware that she was staring blankly at them, clearly unable to see the worried expressions on their faces, "are you still there?" Derek couldn't form any words in his mouth- his mind too occupied by worst-case scenarios to think straight, meanwhile Alex simply stood motionless, observing the other woman as though she was trying to study her. So that left Rossi to be the one to answer, "yeah kiddo, we're here."

"Good," she sighed with a slight chuckle, "for a second I thought everyone had left."

Derek finally found his voice and walked over to Emily's side, "Em are you sure you're okay? Have you had any other symptoms?"

"Derek I'm fine. Nothing else has happened, everything will be okay and we'll be back at the BAU in no time. The doctors are just being overly cautious." They all knew she was trying to convince herself of that fact more so than the others, but they let it slide, not wanting to cause her any more anxiety than she must've already been feeling.

"I think maybe we should all get some rest, we've not had much sleep lately with working that case in Arizona all week and then this morning's early start," Alex chimed, starting to feel that familiar sting in her eye which told her she needed sleep. They each nodded and proceeded to move their beds back into their original positions. Derek helped Emily get under her covers and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead when Rossi and Blake weren't looking, "If you need anything you shout for me okay, no matter what," Derek whispered. Emily nodded in reply, smiling at his protective nature.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BAU:

"Sir, I've got a list of all the male military scientists in DC," Garcia announced, pressing the remote to show the information on the plasma screen.

"Okay eliminate anyone who is under 6ft tall and those without blonde hair and blue eyes," Hotch commanded. The list dropped to 28 names.

"That's still too many," JJ sighed, "We're going to need to go through their personnel files by hand and see who fits the profile." Garcia nodded and left the conference room to retrieve the files but came running back in only moments later, "They've identified the strain!" she shouted.

"What is it Garcia?" Hotch asked.

She looked down at the phone in her hand, "the 420 resistant strain."

The coffee mug Reid was holding fell to the ground with a crash and smashed into pieces.