Creation

The Panic

A/N: So here comes the hard part. I want them to be caring and protective towards each other, but I also don't want to go OOC. Along with that, I have no idea how buildings work, especially bombed buildings and specifically large bombed buildings so I'm kind of winging it. If you have any ideas on how to make it more realistic with both of those things, please do. For now, I'm just going to say, as far as characters go, traumatic events change people.

The BAU doors had shattered. Desks toppled, papers and reports scattered across the dirty bullpen floor.

Italian shoes could be seen from under one of the desks, looking uncannily close to the image of the wicked witch pinned under a house.

The FBI seal once printed proudly on the wall was now in pieces on the ground, cutting the oxygen off for the only mother on the team.

Up on the balcony hallway, the glass was barely intact. The unit chief had almost made it up the stairs.

Blonde hair, matted down with blood, was spread on the ground in the far corner of the room. A man with the tip of the tattoo snaking down his arm visible below his shirt sleeve lay in front of her, his back arched like he'd been trying to shield her from what was coming.

It was a cliche, the flag falling from the wall and draping over the young government agent just so. His messenger bags contents were scattered next to him, a worn book pressed under a bleeding, boney hand.

A pole pinned her down, one shoe off, one shoe missing its tall black heel. The dark haired woman still clutching her weapon, even as the enemy had gone from sight.

No one spoke. No one shifted. The only noise was the off tone beeping of a watch, damaged in the fall.

The aftermath.

The eye of the hurricane.

The calm after the storm.

A hand started to shake, tapping against the stair it rested on. Nerve endings firing, spasming. The shaking turned to clenching, white knuckles clashing with red blood.

Hotch groaned.

It's an odd thing, will. The will to live, the will to choose, the will to protect those who mean everything to you. It drives you to the far reaches of your mind, memories flooding, tears pooling, and then the sensation of drowning overcomes you and you swim, you fight.

Sometimes you lose.

And sometimes you win.

Hotch managed to get an eye open, groaning again at his headache and the raw pain in his right foot.

"Get up"

It wasn't his voice, it wasn't his teams. It was Haley's. Hotch closed his other fist, pulling himself up to his knees.

"Aaron, get up" a soft hand on his cheek forced a breath out of Hotch's lungs he hadn't known he couldn't take. He looked around for her, it didn't take him long to realize she had never been there.

Slowly, ever so painfully slowly, Hotch pulled himself up to stand, steadying himself on the railings that had miraculously stayed sturdy.

His foot gave out beneath him and he bit back a yelp, he looked down at his foot and winced at the blood, it must've hit something when the explosion went off.

"... Explosion" he had to find his team.

As if on cue, a strangled cry rang out from a few feet away and a hand, fingers bleeding, pushed its way out from under rubble and drywall.

Hotch made his way towards it, running, crawling, falling until he made it. A sudden burst of adrenaline ripped through him and he started to dig, not caring when the broken pieces of the wall cut into his palms and forearms. Finally, he dug far enough to see a torso, he held firmly onto the arms of his teammate and pulled.