Disclaimers: No member of the Criminal Minds team belongs to me, they belong to Bernero, Gordon, et al. Even though if they gave me Hotch and/or Garcia for Christmas, I'd be thrilled. All the lyrics quoted here in belong to their attributed authors, and the sea shanty is by Charles Wingate.
Rating: FRC. Angst, some Hotch-whump, but nothing explicit.
Genre: Gen/Hurt-Comfort/Friendship
Spoilers: None. Set in the nebulous near-future.
Characters: Hotch and Garcia, with some cameos by the rest.
Series: Night Watch 'VerseNote: a) Title from "Lord of The Rings: Return of the King", for reasons which will become apparent.
b) This is a remix/variation/three-times-bass-expansion-riff on
a comment-fic that
melliyna wrote me. (This being the second time that's happened.) The prompt being "Garcia and Hotch, locked in a room somewhere. (Possibly a broom closet?)" Well, it was awesome, and the closet turned into a maintenance shed, and grew horns and a tail. (The story did, metaphorically.) So basically, this is all her fault too.
Summary: Why is it that when she comes out in the field, things never go smoothly? After an encounter with an unsub leaves them locked in a shed, a freaked-out Garcia tries to keep a concussed Hotch awake long enough to be rescued, using every trick she knows.
( "Here at journey's end I lie in darkness buried deep/ beyond all towers strong and high/ beyond all mountains steep"- J.R.R. Tolkien )