Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.
maelstrom
Nick Hornby put it quite right in his novel "Slam" when he wrote that you can keep out of trouble pretty much every minute of your life apart from, for example, five seconds and that five seconds can get you into the worst trouble of all. Thousands of years ago, Aristotle coined the term "hamartía" for this: A small lapse in a moment of weakness can be enough to let things violently spin out of control.
"Aaron, are you sure you didn't say anything that might be interpreted as offensive to Strauss last time you talked to her? Not that it wouldn't be understandable…"
"David, you know how much I hate repeating myself, so for the last time: There was nothing!"
"I'm just trying to find an explanation for this." Rossi was covered in a thick layer of dirt, sweat-soaked and constantly under attack from Mosquitoes which, according to Reid, in this size were not common so far north. Very helpful information, that.
"Come on Dave, you're a hunter, you've been through worse tracking down the giant stag whose antlers are now adorning your living-room wall", Aaron Hotchner replied, swatting another Mosquito that tried to use his neck as a gas station.
"Oh yes! Now that you say it… This situation is exactly the same. Just without the stag, the rifle and a proper meal at the end of the day!"
"You must have said something, Hotch", Reid agreed with the senior agent. "Strauss wouldn't have forced us to undertake this survival training without reason."
"And she surely wouldn't have forced the media liaison officer to tag along, too", JJ added accusingly, wiping her forehead, leaving a muddy streak on it.
"Not to mention the technical analyst", Garcia joined in the choir of complaints. "Can you believe it? That instructor from hell who sent us into this godforsaken wilderness forbid me to take my PDA with me! The next internet café is sixty miles away – I'll probably die of sensory deprivation!"
"Will you stop picking on Hotch?", Morgan jumped in. "It's not his fault, you heard him."
"Could you at least try to hide the fact that you're actually enjoying this?", Prentiss asked angrily.
"This is meant as some kind of bonding experience", Hotch explained exasperatedly.
"The people on this team are already so close to each other, any more bonding and we'll be producing babies", Rossi grunted. Exhausted from hiking through the steadily rising terrain, he leaned against a tree and looked at a pond surrounded by rocks deeper down in the woods. From this distance, the water appeared to be pitch black. For a moment he just stared at the landscape. Then he turned to his colleagues, frowning. "Did you hear that?" he asked.