I have discovered through trial and error, primarily the latter, that none of us stands at the helm of life's great ocean liner. Control is an illusion, destination itself is a pitiful chimera, we are at best mere passengers aboard a drifting vessel.

Unknown

*****

The BAU had been called out to New Jersey to help with a case and, after several frustrating days of no results, they had finally identified the person responsible. Currently, they had him cornered on the second floor balcony of a rather dilapidated tenement building. Things had gotten out of hand rather quickly as the unsub revealed the teenage girl he was holding hostage, threatening to kill her if anyone made a move. So, here they were, in a guns-drawn stand-off with the suspect, neither side daring to move and break the moment of mutually assured destruction. The unsub stared down at the police officers and FBI agents on the black-top below as he held the barrel of a handgun to the temple of the girl held fast against his body in a head-lock grasp. On an adrenaline high, he didn't hear the SWAT agents creeping along the ceiling of the building and through the next apartments.

"Lower your weapon!" someone shouted, but the command was ignored. "I said, lower your weapon!"

All of a sudden, Emily dropped to one knee and brought her hand up to the side of her head, clutching at her left ear. "What was that?" she asked Reid, who stood nearest to her. Her eyes were wide in alarm.

"What was what?" Reid asked, confused. He attempted to keep an trained on both her and the unsub at the same time.

Emily's sudden movement startled the unsub and he loosed a single gunshot. The shot went wide of where he was aiming and hit Emily in the upper arm. In the moment of chaos, the hostage managed to wrestle herself free and she ran for her life. There were multiple gunshots in response to the first firing as several of the officers below reacted. The unsub was dead five times before he hit the floor.

Those nearest immediately rushed to Emily's side and began first aid for the bullet wound. "That noise... Before the gunshots, something exploded," she said. She raised an eyebrow at the continued look of confusion on the faces of those around her as she heard the noise a second time and clutched tighter at the side of her head. "There it is again! Didn't you hear it?"

"There was no noise Em..." Morgan said, looking worried.

"What's happening?" she asked, fear edging into her voice as she heard the noise for a third time. She dropped the other knee so she was kneeling on the pavement.

"We need to get her to a hospital," Reid said. "It'll be faster to just take her ourselves than to wait for an ambulance."

"What's the closest hospital?" Hotch demanded of the nearest officer.

"Princeton-Plainsboro," the officer replied without hesitation, "It's about 5 miles south of here."

******

House was in his office avoiding clinic duty, as usual, still riding the high from solving the last case in a burst of genius remarkable even for him. The lack of a case the latter half of the week resulted in him pretending to do his clinic hours for a short while, annoying the heck out of patients and staff, and generally causing chaos wherever possible. Today had been particularly unproductive, he hadn't even gotten in to work until almost 12:30 and had been hiding from Cuddy ever since. Currently, he was ostentatiously strumming his guitar, the noise twanging along the entire floor, and pretending as if he was unaware of Cuddy's presence just outside the door.

Letting out a huffing sigh as she entered the room, Cuddy rolled her eyes as she unplugged the guitar from the amplifier. She tossed a file onto his desk as she summed up the case in a way that would captivate his interest. "FBI agent experiences sudden-onset exploding head syndrome while in a stand-off with a suspect. She was admitted with a gunshot wound to the upper arm, which refused to clot. The exploding head progressed to full-blown seizures, which she's had 3 of since then."

Grinning lecherously and giving a suggestive eyebrow raise, House snatched the file off the desk and brushed past her on his way out the door. "You had me at female FBI agent..."

A/N: Just testing the waters to see if there is an audience receptive to a House/Criminal Minds crossover. Let me know if you like idea!