Chapter 1: Pain

October 6th, 2028

A small, rail-thin girl clutched her tennis racket with every ounce of strength she had. As she stood at the baseline with her legs apart, rocking from side to side, she was more than ready for the practice shot her teammate was about to throw at her. She watched intently as the ball was served, following its trajectory across the net, and guessing where it would land. That was when instincts developed through almost a lifetime of practice took over, without making the conscious decision to do so, she ran a few steps to the left. Keeping both hands on her racket, she proceeded to bring it up and smack the ball hard in the other direction. She made sure to keep its flight path at a low angle to make it harder to return, and less likely to go out of bounds.

She loved every second of this. She loved the weight of the racket in her hands, the way it felt to hold its soft foam and rubber grip until her fingers went numb. Her heart leapt with elation each time she heard the trademark low 'thong' of the ball hitting her racket strings in exactly the right place, and she swelled with pride every time her shots landed just on or inside the opposite baseline.

She adored tennis and every last one of the girls on the junior varsity tennis team, but that shot had taken more out of her physically than she had realized. As soon as it struck as it should, she found herself hugging her abdomen, clutching her sides in agony as though counter pressure would make the pain stop. She'd felt a little off all week, some dull sense of wrongness she couldn't explain or identify. She was also faced with a strange inability to do more than pick at her meals, which had haunted her for several days; however, it was far from enough to tell her parents about, way too minor to miss school or neglect any of her four extra-curricular activities over. Right now though, it was anything but minor. She felt clammy, nauseous, and weak. The pain had become almost too much to bear.

"Hey Evi, are you ok?" Her teammate shouted from across the court.

"Y-yeah!" She called back shakily, forcing a confident smile, "I just need a minute." she added, making a beeline for the gate behind her. Once outside the tennis courts, she stumbled over to a nearby maple tree, clutching it with one hand to keep herself upright, before throwing up. She shivered as the undefined clamminess turned into outright chills, but she forced herself to head back toward the tennis courts anyway. It was all she could do to drag herself inside the gate and sit down against the fence.

She hardly noticed when her best friend, Kat, who had been volleying with another teammate on the court next to her, came rushing over and knelt at her side.

"Evi, hey...talk to me…" She pleaded in a frantic voice, putting a hand on her shoulder and shaking her gently, "Are you alright?" Beside herself, she picked up Evina's water bottle and held it to her friend's lips, "Here, have some water."

Knowing she couldn't keep anything down at this point, not even water, Evina shook her head, "Kat... I'm fine…"

"No, you're not Evi. You look terrible, you're paler than a ghost and kind of...green… maybe we should call your mom…"

"No, I'm fine…" Evi replied. Her stomach felt like it might explode at any moment, and her legs might as well have been spaghetti noodles. However, she forced herself to stand up anyway. She eased her way up by clinging to the fence behind her. As soon as she let go, however, everything within her line of sight began to tilt sickeningly and her knees buckled under her. She sunk back to where she'd been sitting before, landing with a small yelp.

She looked over and saw Kat's large brown eyes staring at her with a frantic, terrified look in them.

"Come on Evi, you are so not fine…" Kat told her, her voice laced with worry.

The small noise of footsteps grew louder within moments as another petite, yet muscular, woman approached. The light jog she was in allowed her black wavy hair to bounce slightly, while the complexion of her skin became more evident the closer she got. This woman was their coach. And the moment their coach saw Evina, her tough exterior cracked and became something close to maternal

"Everything alright over here girls?" She asked tentatively in a tone that said she knew very well it wasn't.

"Coach, I think Evi's sick," Kat told her.

"Kat, I'm fine. Coach, ignore her. I'm alright, really," Evina pleaded unconvincingly.

"Evina, you're going home. I'm calling your mother right now to come and get you," Coach said firmly.

"But…"

"No buts," She replied, taking out her cellphone, "Katherine, go get her brother, he should be on the baseball diamond with his own team right about now. You go get him, I'll stay with her until their mom gets here."

"Yeah, yeah I can totally do that. I'll be right back," Kat replied, taking off at top speed out the gate and towards the baseball diamond on the other side of the soccer field.

It was a warm afternoon, the sun shone overhead so brightly that it almost blinded her as she ran. As she approached the diamond, the junior high boys' baseball team came into view, apparently playing a mock game, half of them were in the outfield and half were at bat.

She scanned the field and spotted Conan on the pitcher's mound.

"Hey, Conan! Get over here!" She called.

"Kat? What are you talking about? We're in the middle of practice!" He replied, sending the ball flying toward home plate.

"I know! But Evi's sick, our coach is calling your mom!" She told him. That got his attention. She watched as he froze where he stood, his eyes suddenly wide with fear. He ran toward her, grabbing his backpack off the bench without stopping.

"Hey! Reid! Where do you think you're going, Kid? We've still got work to do!" Coach Bernard, the math teacher/baseball coach called after him. He was a heavy-set, balding older man.

"I'm sorry Sir, but I really have to go. It's an emergency!" Conan replied as he and Kat started off back toward the tennis courts.

"What happened?" He asked as they ran shoulder to shoulder.

"I don't know, but she had to leave the court during practice to go throw up and when she came back she had to sit down against the fence. She couldn't even stand up, she tried but she couldn't do it." Kat replied in a frantic voice.

When the tennis courts and back parking lot came into view, they saw an antique blue Volvo pulling up as close as possible to the courts.

"Hey, isn't that your dad's car?" Kat wondered aloud.

"It is," Conan confirmed. "Mom must have called him after your coach called her, but I didn't even know he was back in town…"

Reid was in the FBI parking lot. The BAU had finished and returned from a case in New Mexico just a few hours ago and once all the reports had been completed, Emily had given them the rest of the day off.

He was almost to his car when his cell phone began to ring, taking it out, he immediately recognized his wife's caller ID picture and answered it.

"Hi Honey… I just got off work…"

"Spencer, I just talked to Evina's tennis coach…"

He stopped in his tracks. She sounded upset, almost frantic. It was as though she were about to cry.

"And?"

"She's sick… she threw up outside the courts today and now she can't even stand up."

At that, Reid kicked himself into high gear, getting in the driver's seat and throwing his messenger bag and the large, square duffel that served as his go-bag, thoughtlessly onto the passenger seat.

"Where are you right now?" He asked.

"I'm out in front of the elementary school waiting to pick up Isabel, then I was going to circle back to the high school and get the twins." She replied.

"Alright, I'm closer to the twins' school than you are so you wait for Isabel and I'll go get Evina and Conan ok?"

"O-ok…"

With that, he hung up, put his car into gear, and sped out of the parking lot toward the school.

Liberty Jr/Sr high school sat on a sprawling ten-acre campus about five miles away from FBI Headquarters. Reid pulled onto the campus and followed a much smaller road around to the back of the building until he parked on the edge of the back parking lot nearest the tennis courts. He got out and ran toward them.

He found his daughter sitting propped up against the fence. His heart started racing at the sight of her. She was paler than a sheet, flyaways that had escaped her long, chestnut ponytail were plastered to her forehead by sweat, and her blue-green eyes were glassy and unfocused. Her breathing was loud and labored, and she had both arms wrapped around her abdomen.

Carefully, he knelt down beside her.

"Evi…" He whispered, shaking her as gently as he could. "Evi, Sweetheart, please answer me…"

She turned her head weakly, not daring to move the slightest bit away from the support the fence provided, and looked at him; though it was hard to tell whether or not she could actually see him clearly.

"Daddy…" She replied feebly. "I don't feel good…"

"I know, I know Honey… let's get you out of here. Ok?" He told her, scooping her up into his arms, making sure to support her head and neck since he wasn't sure she could do that on her own at the moment and rising to his feet.

As he carried her out to the car, he saw his son, Conan, Evina's twin brother, along with her best friend, their next-door neighbor, Katherine, coming toward them.

"Dad? What are you doing here?" Conan asked as he ran up to them.

"Your sister's coach called your mother and she called me, I was closer. Get in the car." Reid told him. He was trying to stay calm, or at least pretend to be, for Conan and Evina's sake, he didn't want to scare them, but there was still a frantic edge to his voice and it was clear that it hadn't escaped Conan''s notice.

Conan didn't need to be told twice, he immediately got in the front passenger seat and threw his backpack at his feet.

"Kat, could you go get Evina's backpack and tennis bag for me?" Reid asked.

Kat nodded, and took off running toward the courts and came back two minutes later carrying Evina's backpack and tennis bag, which the coach had repacked for her after calling Maeve, over her shoulders. At Reid's request, she tossed them on the floorboards of the backseat.

Reid laid Evina gently across the backseat of the car. He had a bad feeling about this, she wasn't just nauseous, she was physically drained to the point where she was almost limp, and heat radiated off her forehead like a furnace, a sure sign of an excessively high fever. Something, though he wasn't sure what, was very, very wrong here.

He hurriedly shut the door and jumped back in the driver's seat and pulled the door shut.

Before Conan knew it, they were turning back onto the main road, but they weren't going home. His father had turned in the opposite direction.

"Dad?" Conan asked. "Where are we going?"

"Call your mother," Reid replied, handing his cellphone to his son.

"O-k…" Conan replied.

"Put her on speaker…"

He obeyed.

"Hi Honey, where are you?" Came Maeve's voice on the other end of the phone.

"I'm taking Evi to the hospital. When I picked the twins up, she could barely even move. Something's really wrong, I can feel it."

"Ok, well I just picked up Isabel. I'm gonna take her home, then I'll see if I can get my dad to come over and I'll meet you there." Maeve told him, then hung up.