Chapter One – Beginning or End?
"They're doing better than I thought."
SSA Aaron Hotchner glanced across the front seat of the SVU toward his teammate, Jennifer Jareau, before focusing where he was going again.
"It probably hasn't really sunk in yet," he answered.
She nodded and returned her attention to the dark, icy Colorado road before them. It took her a few moments to find a comfortable position again. Finding a good place for a seat belt the first time she'd been pregnant hadn't been easy, and the second was no different.
They were on their way back from the Nichols' home. Their only child, Sean, had been the most recent victim of Karl Milton, the killer the BAU had been tracking for almost three days. The profile had been set and distributed and the unsub identified. The only problem now was locating him.
Hopefully before more victims turned up.
"We might get back later than we thought with this snow," JJ mused.
When they'd left to join the rest of the team the snow had only been falling lightly. Over the last half hour though, the snow had begun to increase, accumulating on the road. They had to keep the windshield wipers going almost constantly in order to see.
Hotch had fallen silent, eyes fastened on the road ahead. While silence wasn't unusual for the expressionless unit chief, JJ could tell that this time the reason was the road conditions. Even with how carefully he was driving, the car still skidded at times.
Grabbing her phone to let the rest of the team know they would probably be late, she noticed the battery was almost dead. Not a surprise with the cold temperatures, and easily remedied when they reached the station.
"Reid? We're on our way back now. It might be awhile yet. The roads are pretty bad."
"Learn anything new?"
"Not much. They had never heard the name before. How about you guys?"
"A few leads. Garcia is still digging too. He uses a lot of different addresses for mail. Mostly magazines. Did you know there are thirty seven th-"
"Bye, Reid," JJ cut him off, knowing that if she hadn't he would have continued rambling about magazine statistics for hours.
As JJ returned her phone to the pocket of her coat, movement on the periphery of her vision caught her attention.
"Hotch!"
Hotch slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision with the deer that had darted onto the road. The wheels slid despite the anti-lock breaks, the edge of the road coming up all too quickly. Yanking the steering wheel to the left in an attempt to stop their fishtailing and prevent them from going off the road, Hotch's face was creased in focus and concern. A concern that only increased as the car spun into a near one eighty, the back wheels finding only air.
"Shit."
It wasn't a yell of panic only because Hotch refused to display his emotions. They stayed locked in a tightly sealed steel box inside of him. Practice over the years had made it incredibly easy for him to keep them there no matter the situation.
As the back wheels left the road and the tail end of the SUV plummeted into the ditch JJ yelped Hotch's name once more, eyes wide in fright. One arm automatically snapped out to brace herself against the door, the other curling protectively around her seven month belly.
The next few moments were a jumbled rush of fear, spraying snow, and a nauseating spinning. It all came to a sudden stop when the rear driver's side of the vehicle smashed into the trees at the bottom of the ditch. The impact rocked the SUV, slamming the two FBI agents around like rag dolls.
The last thing JJ remembered was the sickening crunch of metal before everything went dark.
Author's Note: This is my first fanfic, but I guess I'm the type of person to just dive in head first. This thing is incredibly long. Yes, it's already completely finished, so hopefully I'll get more than one chapter up each day as long as life doesn't eat me. Of course, things may take a bit longer if my pre-screening readers or any reviewers suggest improvements that might change a later chapter. Hopefully at least someone out there will enjoy it. If not, well, I had to get it out of my head and down on paper anyways.