Ok so this is my entry for The-Vampire-Act's contest "How will season five of Criminal Minds end?"
As with all my story's it's going to be H/P but more friendship because they're not actually together in the show... let's not get into how unhappy I am about that!
Disclaimer: Not mine, but if it was I'd tell them to have this season end...lol =D
"Disaster is a natural part of my evolution. Toward tragedy and dissolution." – Chuck Palahniuk.
Hotch straightened out his tux for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few minutes before finally stepping out of his office onto the balcony.
"Looking sharp Hotch." Teased Morgan, who was sitting at his desk smirking at his boss.
"Morgan another word from you and I'll have us switch places for the evening." Hotch growled, sending a glare in Morgan's direction.
"Sorry Hotch." Morgan mumbled, looking a lot less cocky than he had been a minute ago.
"Does anyone know where Prentiss is?" Hotch asked looking at the room in general.
"She's in the ladies room with JJ and Garcia getting ready." Reid supplied, pointing to the corridor.
"Still?!" Hotch exclaimed, looking in the direction Reid was pointing, as if by magic Emily would just appear.
"Yea... Garcia came in here a minute ago muttering about a lip gloss emergency, but that's all I know." Reid again answered looking slightly confused.
Hotch rolled his eyes... typical women taking hours to get ready... and this was work related, it wasn't an actual date!
Just as Hotch was about to demand that someone go and get the ladies, the doors of the bullpen swung open and an angry looking Emily stormed in wearing a dress to match her mood.
It was a floor length dark red dress with diamonds around the bodice, and with a slight flare at the bottom... and Hotch had to admit she looked stunning.
"Emily please just try them on." Garcia begged as she ran through the door after Emily.
"Pen, there isn't a hope in hell I'm going to wear them shoes, they're like six inches and that's without a platform, they'll kill me... plus I'm on a case so I can't wear shoes that I can't walk in." Emily reasoned with the woman.
"She has a point Pen; she'd never be able to tackle the Unsub's if she was wearing them." JJ agreed walking in behind Garcia with an amused look on her face.
"She could just throw one at them." Garcia muttered, accepting defeat and placing the ruby red six inch heels... without a platform... back into they're box.
"Right if you ladies are done bickering I'd like to get this evening over and done with now." Hotch said, starting to feel self conscious, being this well dressed in the office.
"You and me both." Emily mumbled as she stepped over to Hotch, careful not to stand on her dress, and accepted his outstretched hand.
"Hotch we've got new information." Rossi called suddenly from the conference room, causing Hotch and Emily to turn around.
As they did there was a flash of light followed by a roar of laughter from the team.
"This is going on a big poster all around the bureau." Rossi smiled looking at the picture in his camera of Emily and Hotch dressed to the nines and holding hands.
"You're so dead, and once I get out of these shoes you better start running." Emily hissed.
"Oh for god sakes, Prentiss we have all day tomorrow to kill Rossi, right now we have a function to get to." Hotch snapped.
He really didn't want to go to this function... and he really didn't see the need for BAU agents to go... I mean sure they'd been asked to help with a profile once the German Embassy had started getting bomb threats, but if a bomb was going to go off there was no point and sending him and Prentiss in to see who was going to detonate it... whoever it was would be trained so the only real clue would be the explosion!
Half an hour later, outside the German Embassy:
"We're just going in now." Hotch said into the mouth piece on his sleeve. "Can you hear me?"
"We read you loud and clear boss man." Garcia sang back as she was in control of computers.
"Right, where's Rossi, Morgan, Reid and JJ?" Hotch asked, looking at the buildings around him as he spoke.
"Rossi and my Chocolate God are in the building overlooking the left wing along with some SWAT guys and Reid and Jayje are in a building to the north with some counter terrorism guys." Garcia recited.
"Right thanks Garcia." Hotch said before turning to Emily who was trying to pull up her dress.
"You're welcome sir... and tell Emily not to touch that dress because it's meant to lie like that." Garcia added as if she was looking through Hotch's eyes.
"Right Prentiss come on." Hotch said grabbing Emily's hand. "And Garcia said to stop messing with the dress because it's meant to look like that... and I have to agree with her it does look nice on you." He added with a rare Hotch smile.
"Thanks Hotch." Emily said with a shy smile as she stopped trying to fix the dress.
"Oh and one more thing... we're meant to be a couple so from now on I'm Aaron and you're Emily, not Hotch and Prentiss." He said as he led her into the embassy.
"Right Ho- Aaron." Emily corrected herself with a smile.
Office building overlooking south side of embassy:
"So what do you think the chances are of this evening going smoothly?" Morgan asked Rossi as they both watched the small monitor on the desk intently.
"Well we profiled this guy as a psycho, with personal motive for wanting to blow up the embassy, which in itself tells me we're going to have trouble, not to mention he has enough explosive power to do just that... so honestly... zero." Rossi finished with a disheartened sigh.
"I just love it when you're optimistic." Morgan half joked, knowing deep down however that Rossi was right.
Building overlooking north side of embassy:
"Hey Garcia, do you have access to the video cameras in the function room?" JJ asked over her phone as both she and Reid stared at a blank screen.
"Why do you insist on insulting my intelligence by asking that?" Garcia joked. "They're coming your way... now!" she added, just as the previously blank screen flashed on and four different shots of the room came into focus.
"You're the best Garcia." JJ smiled s she scanned the screens.
"Aw, and you're the second best my lovely." Garcia replied happily before hanging up.
"This isn't going to end well is it?" JJ sighed as she stared at the screen.
"With a guy like out Unsub... If we don't get him before he gets into the embassy, there'll be blood." Reid sighed also looking at the screens.
"Hm, that's what I'd hoped you wouldn't say." JJ mumbled.
"There's Hotch and Emily coming in the main entrance now." Reid said suddenly, pointing to the second shot of the room.
The Embassy function room:
"My god it's like a flashback to my childhood." Emily whispered to Hotch as they walked in.
"I really do pity you then." Hotch whispered back as someone made their way over to the pair.
"Hola." The Spanish ambassador said with a large smile and a firm handshake.
"Hola, Cómo estás?" Emily replied in flawless Spanish as Hotch just smiled awkwardly.
~.~.~.~
"I really hope that doesn't happen all night!" Hotch mumbled as the Spanish man finally walked away after a half an hour conversation which had more or less been Emily talking and Hotch nodding his head.
"Don't complain, this night it could be worse." Emily replied as she made a bee line for the buffet... she hadn't eaten since lunch time.
"Really how could waiting for the building you're currently in to blow up be any worse?" Hotch asked.
"At least it's me here." Emily said as she filled her plate.
Instead of replying to this Hotch simply raised his eyebrow in Emily's direction, indicating that he hadn't a clue what she meant.
"Well we're meant to be a couple... so it would have been a bit weird if it was one of the guy's and JJ and Garcia are taken, so at least you got to work this case with a single, female agent." Emily supplied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Yea... and you can speak six different languages." Hotch added, thinking of how many awkward moments there would be if Emily hadn't been able to talk to the Spanish guy.
"That you know of." Emily said with a wink and a smile as she walked to a table with her plate.
Office building overlooking south side of embassy:
"Hey Rossi, come have a look at this." Morgan called, motioning towards the monitor.
Rossi walked back from the SWAT team and sat back down squinting at the screen to see what Morgan had been looking at.
"I don't see anything." Rossi stated in confusion after a moment.
"That's exactly my point; a second ago there was a man there." Morgan exclaimed.
"Why the hell didn't you say something sooner?!" Rossi shouted.
"He came out of the embassy so I presumed he worked there, but then he walked around a bit and went in a different door." Morgan said, trying to defend himself.
"Call JJ and Reid quickly and see did they get the guy on their cameras." Rossi ordered as Morgan pulled out his phone and hit speed dial 5 for JJ.
Building overlooking north side of embassy:
"Hello... Morgan... Ok, we'll check now." JJ said after answering her phone.
She hung up and went back to her seat beside Reid.
"What are we checking?" Reid asked, already looking at the screens.
"Morgan and Rossi said they seen a guy come out through one of the back doors, pace about a bit and go back in a different door and they want to know did we pick him up on any cameras." JJ informed Reid as she began to search the screen as well.
"There... right there." Reid squealed excitedly after a moment, pointing to the third image.
There was a tall dark haired man pacing it the corner near the fire exit, a small box in one hand.
"I'll call Garcia." JJ said, standing up quickly and pressing speed dial two.
FBI Quantico Virginia:
"You have reached the bat cave, batgirl speaking." Garcia answered in an upbeat tone.
"Garcia its JJ, we need you to do facial recognition on the guy in the corner of image three." JJ said quickly.
"I shall have that knowledge it two seconds flat." Garcia replied, already putting to clearest image of the man's face through INTERPOL.
Garcia's fingers whizzed across the keyboard and she watched as icons popped up on the screen, each getting her one step closer to finding out just who the mystery man was.
"Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner." She called after a minute. "Tom Schmidt, thirty seven he was... oh no JJ you have to get Hotch and Emily out of there NOW!" Garcia gasped suddenly, losing her playful tone and taking on a far graver one.
"Ok Garcia, just tell me what I need to know and then I'll get them and the rest of the people at the function out." JJ replied, getting slightly panicked.
The Embassy function room:
"JJ just slow down and repeat all of what you just said." Hotch said calmly into his mouth piece, ignoring the puzzled look he was getting from Emily. "What! Are you sure?" He said in shock after JJ repeated what she'd been trying to tell him.
"What is it, what's wrong?" Emily whispered once he'd stopped talking to JJ... she didn't wasn't to scare the other guests.
"We need to get eyes on this man." Hotch said showing Emily the picture that had just appeared on his phone, choosing to ignore her question as he didn't want to cause unnecessary panic... well what he hoped would be unnecessary.
"Is he our guy?" Emily asked, already scanning the room for someone who bore resemblance to the mug shot on Hotch's phone.
"Uh huh, and we need to get him out of here quickly and quietly." Hotch said as he to scanned the room.
"There." Emily hissed, motioning subtly to the corner of the room.
"Right walk towards him slowly... this guys been institutionalised most of his life, so we need to be careful." Hotch whispered, taking the lead and walking casually towards the man.
"Wait Hotch, institutionalised?" Emily asked slightly shocked. "Just what are we walking towards?"
Hotch sighed, and stopped momentarily... there was no point in avoiding the question, not only was it morally wrong to not tell Emily that he was walking her into an extremely dangerous situation but if she knew what she was facing she'd have the ability to back off from the situation... he wouldn't blame her.
"His name's Tom Schmidt, he's thirty seven and he was institutionalised when he was twenty for slaughtering his family and claiming they were out to get him." Hotch said quietly and quickly. "He's a paranoid personality who also has multiple personality disorder and when he's of his meds he has fanaticise about blowing up stuff." Hotch finished, taking his eyes of the Unsub to gauge Emily's response.
"So basically take my pick of reasons to be careful." Emily joked.
"You sure you want to do this?" Hotch said slightly shocked that she wasn't running... then again it was Emily Prentiss he was talking to.
"Hotch there's not a hope in hell that I'm going to let you face this guy alone... If something happened I... the team would miss you too much... at least when I'm there you'll have some back-up." She said reassuringly, both for her and Hotch's sake.
"Well in that case I couldn't think of anyone better coming in here with me." Hotch said with a small smile, before starting to walk again, trying to relocate the man.
Building overlooking north side of embassy:
"Shit we've lost eyes on him!" JJ cried suddenly, searching the screens frantically.
"That either means he's gone back outside or he's behind the stage in the ballroom." Reid said, having learnt the position of the cameras and the area they covered before they'd arrived.
"I'll call Morgan and Rossi to see can they see him." JJ muttered, more to herself than Reid, picking up her phone and hitting speed dial four.
Office building overlooking south side of embassy:
"Right JJ we'll see can we spot him now." Morgan said into his phone, before hanging up and walking over to where Rossi was sitting.
"What now?" Rossi asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
"Our guy may be back outside... or if not we're in trouble." Morgan sighed, sitting back down and beginning to stare at the screen.
"Well looks like trouble... there's been no movement out here since that waiter came out for a cigarette." Rossi sighed, looking slightly worried... and when David Rossi was showing signs of fear you knew the shit was hitting the fan.
"Aw, crap... I'll call Hotch and Prentiss." Morgan said, jumping up again and pulling his cell back out of its holder on his belt.
The Embassy function room:
"Right Morgan, ok... yea we seen him go down there earlier, thanks bye." Hotch said before hanging up his phone. "Morgan and the rest of the team think he's gone behind the stage." Hotch said turning to Emily.
"Isn't that where the Ambassador is getting ready to say his speech." Emily gasped, suddenly realising how bad things were.
"Yes it is so we need to get back there..." Hotch started, but he stopped suddenly and looked in horror at the stage behind Emily.
Emily turned slowly and cursed under her breath at the site that greeted her.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I know you were expecting my dear uncle to say a speech tonight, but instead I've decided to say a few words in his place." Tom Schmidt sneered, with a twisted grin on his narrow face, a small box in one hand and a light machine gun pointing at his cowering uncle in the other... however the hell he'd gotten that in was a mystery.
"Well that's his personal reason for wanting to bomb the embassy." Emily whispered to Hotch, staring at Tom's uncle... the German ambassador.
"This, my friends is what I like to call the disaster button." Tom said, holding up the little box that had a black button on the front. "And when I press it... we all die." He added, his smile growing as people began to scream and panic.
"Morgan, Rossi, JJ, and Reid we need SWAT and anything else you can get us in here now... we don't have long left." Hotch shouted into his mouth piece, over the sound of the crowd. "Emily." He said turning to the woman in question that was looking at him bravely awaiting orders.
"Sir?" She replied.
"That man has a machine gun... we have service pistols, we may go down shooting." He told her, offering her a way out and hoping she'd accept.
"Well lucky there's no one I'd rather do that with Aaron." She replied firmly, pulling out her side arm and giving him a tight smile.
Outside:
The team plus SWAT plus some counter terrorism agents ran across the lawn and up to the door of the embassy, not knowing what they'd find.
Seconds before they'd heard gun fire, both from what sounded like a machine gun and from a standard issue glock and this had spurred them on
No one outside knew who'd fired first or who'd gone down shooting.
There... that was really long, but I enjoyed writing it. =D