Unknown- A Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 39- Sedated

My head splashed through the surface, the fresh breath I drew a desperate gasp.  It burned my lungs, partly because I'd been underwater for so long but mostly because I had three fractured and four broken ribs.  I panted to catch my breath, each inhale sending a sharp pain stabbing through my chest since I had also been cut open in two places even before the surgery.  The pressure pounding in my head had yet to cease, and everything ached because the morphine had started wearing off a long while ago.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have even been in the hotel pool at one a.m. considering I was still supposed to be in the hospital and had only been released for my own protection.  But instead of doing the logical thing and getting out of the water, I released the ledge and twisted around, kicking off the side of the pool to swim another lap.  I'd lost track of how many I was on around number twenty-three, and that was at least twenty minutes ago.

I stopped with a splash when I heard the creak of the door to the pool room opening, followed by the tapping of shoes against the tiles as someone entered the room fully-clothed. I glanced up from the water lapping at my shoulders and recognized the all-too-familiar attire of the BAU's resident genius. He looked out of place even though he was the only other person in the room, wearing his usual dress pants, button-up, and sweater vest.

The aching pain coursing through my body tensed into fury, and I turned away from him and pulled myself forwards with another powerful stroke, my anger fueling the weariness in my body.

Something he said echoed through the room but the water was splashing too loudly, until he called again and I clearly heard, "Charlie!" filling the air.

I hit the opposite end, ignoring him even though I twisted and started swimming another lap back towards where he was standing on the edge of the pool.

"Charlie, would you please just listen to me?  I'm sorry," he said, loud enough to be heard over the water.

I stopped a few feet from the edge of the pool, slicking my short brown hair back from my forehead and wincing at the stitches pulling in my shoulder when I moved my hands above my neck.

"Sorry doesn't get rid of a concussion, broken ribs, and getting cut open," I snapped, glowering at him.

"A concussion?  Get out of the water, you're not even supposed to be out of bed much less swimming laps!" Reid exclaimed.

"Have fun making me," I challenged, turning to swim back across the pool.

"Charlie," he sighed, exasperated.  I didn't respond, and he tried again, his voice firmer as he threatened, "McDowell, get out of the pool or I'm going to get Hotch and Rossi down here."

I paused, only because after the fiasco at the hospital they ended up having me sedated twice and I really didn't want to go back there and get pumped full of more drugs.  Though that might help with the pain that was becoming more apparent now that I had stopped swimming.

I spun around in the water again, the current pulling painfully at all my stitches and injuries as I sullenly headed back towards where Reid was standing by the ladder.  I tried to convince myself I wasn't actually listening to him and getting out cause I have a concussion and he threatened to get Rossi and Hotch, I was just finally physically exhausted enough that I might be able to sleep without nightmares plaguing my unconscious.  

I didn't say anything as I grabbed a towel from the shelf and started drying off, trying my best to keep from brushing the jagged fresh pink scars decorated with a row of ink black stitches.  One sliced from my collarbone to the middle of my chest, and a matching one ran from right below my ribcage to my hip.  I quickly slipped my T-shirt over my head to cover them up and cover up the images that had started flashing through my head again.

I didn't say another word to Reid as I tossed my used towel into the basket and snatched my key card off the table, stalking past him to go back to my room.

I had been with my stalker for a week.  It took two days to get from DC to the place where my stalker held me, right on the border of West Virginia and Kentucky.  He tortured me for four days before the team finally tracked him down and found me on the fifth, and I was overnighted back to the hospital in DC.  There I was in ICU for three days and then moved to a regular ward under close supervision for two more days before I was released, and now I was staying in a hotel with the rest of the team until they deemed it was safe for me to go home.

No one knew how long it would take though because they hadn't caught him.  My stalker got away when he stabbed a member of  SWAT and escaped out a side entrance.  A side entrance Reid was supposed to be covering, but he had been too concerned with saving my life to stay at his post.  

Apparently my heart had stopped for a brief second and it looked like I had stopped breathing, but I woke up and started fighting after Reid had given me CPR so they had to sedate me to get me into an ambulance.  And again when I woke up the first time in the hospital, and a third time when Prentiss and Morgan told me my stalker had gotten away.  Morgan hadn't been able to go with the rest of the team to rescue me, his skull had fractured from getting bashed on the head, but he was fine now.

My stalker: his name was Matthew Skinner, a fifty-three-year-old former post office worker, recently divorced.  Former because he had been fired when he was caught tampering with people's mail, and recently because even his own wife was creeped out by the way he had been acting.  He had some experience in the military, a member of the Special Forces for two years before he was dishonorably discharged.  His Special Forces training made him an expert at living off the grid, and since he had escaped Garcia hadn't been able to find a single trace of him.

I pulled on pajamas and downed some painkillers, climbing into bed and waiting for drugs and exhaustion to bury me in sleep.  My room had a security system installed, a security guard was posted outside all entrances and exits, and I slept with a knife under my pillow and a gun on my nightstand.  Technically speaking, I was safe, but that didn't cease the constant worry that lurked at the back of my mind even as I drifted off.