Not Your Average Horror Movie
Disclaimer: I own nothing connected to Criminal Minds, except for the series on DVD.
Summary: While at Emily's home, the team disappears and realizes that someone is out to get them...
A/N: This one is my favorite, and it totally popped into my head. Enjoy.
Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave a review.
"All of us have individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps." Wes Craven
Emily leaned her head back on the couch, while Reid stretched his lengthy legs out on the settee.
"Which movies next, Princess?" Morgan called out from the recline while Dave placed the popcorn bowl on the coffee table between them.
"Whatever you guys pick next." Emily said, "I'm going on another soda run, anyone want anything?"
"Some more candy, if you got it" Reid called out, hearing Garcia chuckle from the couch next to her, "What?"
"Boy Genius, I love you and I say this with all the love in the world" Garcia said tossing a popcorn at him to get him to look at her, "But if you don't ease up on the candy, you're going to be a Diabetic before you're thirty five."
"What?" Reid asked turning in her direction, "That's not true."
As Emily maneuvered herself to the kitchen she could hear the sound of her friends witty banter and lighthearted argument.
Hotch chuckled as he followed Emily into the kitchen, "Need a hand?"
"Nah" Emily said, going into the cabinet grabbing the candy, "Well maybe, yeah."
"Which one is it, nah or yeah?" Hotch teased, opening the refrigerator pulling out the canned sodas.
"Hold these." Emily said tossing over the licorice and chocolates, "I need to look for the peanut clusters."
"You eat like a college student" Hotch commented, "I'm surprised you haven't collapsed from the amount of junk."
"I do exercise and work out, Hotch" Emily said going into her pantry, while he turned and looked out the sliding glass door, noting the late hours.
The team all needed to unwind after the past few cases they had.
And of course when Garcia volunteered movie night at Emily's new house who could refuse the bubbly analyst. No one brave enough would.
"So what movie do you think they picked?" Emily asked, pausing when she didn't hear a response, "Hotch?"
Walking out of the pantry, she looked around, "Hotch?"
Grabbing the stuff, she wondered why he left without telling her, and wandered into the living room with the tray full of treats.
"You guys" Emily called out "What did you pick out? Guys?"
Emily looked around and frowned, "Did everyone decided to leave without telling me?"
"Guys?" Emily called out, "JJ? Dave?"
Emily set the stuff down, and walked towards the bedrooms, "Where are you guys? This isn't funny."
Walking back into the living room, Emily wandered over to the dining room and jumped, "Jesus, Reid. Where the hell where you and everyone?"
"I heard a knock on your back door and when I came back everyone was gone." Reid told her, "What's wrong?"
Emily sighed as went to the back door, and looked outside, "I don't know, Hotch just disappeared while we were getting the snacks. And when I went into the living room, everyone was gone."
Reid gasped as he grabbed her arms, "Just like that movie we were about to watch."
"What movie?" Emily asked, "What is it?"
"Garcia put on the scary movie about people who disappear at an abandoned house." Reid said, "One by one everyone gets killed off until only the leading man and woman are left until a hand reaches out and grabs on to..."
Emily felt a hand on her shoulder and screamed causing Reid to jump.
"Calm down, Emily" Hotch said, "Where the hell did you disappear off to?"
"Me?" Emily said, "I was in the pantry when you vanished."
"I didn't..." Hotch said pausing, The last thing I remembered was..."
The three heard a noise coming from the kitchen and each winced when they realized none of them had their gun.
Emily moved forward to check it out, when Hotch grabbed her elbow, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Going to check out the noise" Emily said with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't do that" Reid said, "In standard horror movies, the person who goes to investigates the noise always shows up in the last scene dead."
Emily turned to give him a puzzled look, when the cell phone rang, rolling her eyes, "Hello?"
"Hello, Emily" a voice called out.
"Yeah?" Emily said shrugging at the two men, "Can I help you?"
"No but I can help you" the caller said, "I'm sure you're wondering where your friends are. Correct?"
"Who is this?" Emily asked signaling Hotch and Reid to pay attention.
"An interested party." the caller said, "One that's highly invested in the outcome."
"What?" Emily asked, "Where's my team? What the hell do you want?"
"As you can see, I left you two of your friend behind" the caller said, "Put me on speaker."
Emily did as the caller instructed, "Now we're going to play a little game. It's called where am I?"
Looking from Hotch to Reid, "What?"
"There are three main entrances to your home, and I have four of your friends." the caller told her, "If you want all of your friends back, in tact, then you three need to complete some tasks."
"What kind of tasks?" Reid asked, his heart beating fast.
"The kind I demand..." the caller said.
Emily walked over to the front door, and opened it. Eyes widening in horror, she couldn't believe what she had seen.
It couldn't be real, a silver and gold box.
Looking around she didn't see anyone there, so she carefully kneeled down and popped the lid off the box, and nearly collapsed over when she saw the purple lily.
Dropping the flower back in the box, her mind flashed back to a time she'd rather forget and the man behind that flower. The man who caused her so much pain and turmoil, and this purple flower.
Shaking her head, this couldn't be real. Ian Doyle was dead, she saw it with her own eyes.
Putting the lid back on the box, she brought the dreaded box with her into her home.
As she wandered back towards the living room, she nearly jumped when she saw the fear induced look on Reid's face.
"What?" Emily asked, "What did he leave you?"
"He... he left me..." Reid sputtered, shaking his hand went into pocket and pulled out a vial.
"Oh my God" Emily gasped, grabbing the drug away from him, "Reid."
"I was tempted..." Reid said softly, "I really was tempted, but I couldn't do it. Not again."
Emily pulled the younger man into her arms, relief filled her, "We'll get through this. Where's Hotch?"
"I don't know" Reid said, turning around, "I just want to find everyone and have this over with."
"Yeah" Emily nodded, looking at all the exits, "Whoever doing this, knows our histories. Especially mine."
"What did you get?" Reid asked looking at the box.
Emily was about to open her mouth when they heard a loud slam from the back entrance.
"Hotch?" Emily's voice said with a lot more confidence then felt.
"Emily? Reid?" Hotch called out, coming from the backyard his face white as a sheet holding a folded paper.
"Hotch, what?" Emily asked seeing the unfazable man shaken, "What is it?"
Hotch briefly closed his dark eyes and thrust the paper towards her, as she unfolded it she couldn't resist the gasp that escaped her lips.
It was a photo of Haley and Jack, if memory served correctly, it was the same one that Foyet left for Hotch.
"What the hell?" Emily said looking at the mysterious callers clues, "You get this, I get those and Reid gets that."
"What?" Hotch asked, looking up, "What did you two get?"
Pulling the Dilaudid vial from her pocket, "Reid was given this, and those over there" Emily said nodding to the box on the table, "The same flowers that Doyle left me when he was following me."
Both Reid and Hotch grimaced at that thought, "These clues they're all from the past. Things that we struggled with."
"I know" Hotch said looking down at the picture, "From our worst moments."
"Not just the worst moments, but moments that shaped and defined us." Emily told them, "With Doyle, it was getting the flower that changed everything for me. Kept me hyper vigilant, I was always on guard. Hotch?"
"The picture" Hotch said eyeing the small photo in Emily's hand, "That's when I made the choice to send them away, to protect them." Looking at the two agents, "I had to make a choice, to keep them safe. Reid?"
"The Dilaudid" Reid told them, "That caused me to close myself off from everyone. When I was addicted, it was all I'd think about, focused on. It made me snap at everyone, keep myself guarded because I was afraid that everyone figured it out."
Emily looked from the photo in her hand, the drug in the other and the flower in front of her.
"Oh my God" Emily said looking at both men, "This is about choices. The biggest choices we've all ever made..."
"Ones that affected our lives in different ways." Hotch finished, "These choices impacted our futures."
"Changed the courses of our life" Reid whispered, "And changed the way we view situations similar to ours."
Emily pondered all that, "And we all were attacked by deranged sociopaths." Emily said, "Hankle, Foyet and Doyle."
"They set us on a different path" Hotch told her, "If we had never been targeted by them, our lives could've been completely different if it wasn't for them."
Emily stood with the two men in the living room and heard the phone ring. As she wandered over to her house phone she grabbed it, answered it.
"What?" Emily said, she hated the fact that whoever this person was had dredge up the worst moments of their lives.
If it was just about her, then she could take it, but to remind Hotch and Reid of the worst moments that they had ever experienced was another thing.
"Hello, Emily" the caller said, and Emily tried to rack her brain of their voice. The inclination of the tone sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn't figure out from who, "Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?" Emily asked placing the phone on speaker to for Hotch and Reid to hear.
"Confess" the caller told her, "Why did you run instead of trust the people beside you..."
Emily bit her lip, "What?"
"What did you think that you could just walk out of their lives?" the caller said, "Don't you love your team?" At all?"
"Of course I do." Emily told the caller, "But I couldn't put them in danger. I couldn't live with myself if anything had happened to them."
"That's not an answer" the caller told her, "But you better give an honest answer, if you want your friends back."
"I was ashamed of myself for having to get that close to him" Emily exhaled, "I never wanted that to get out. I never wanted anyone to find out what I had to do. I could take whatever Doyle did to me, but if they got anyone from my team, I wouldn't want to live with that. It was my choice and I'd choose to protect them over myself."
Hotch closed his eyes, he could somewhat relate to that. When he was attacked by Foyet he had to hide his family to keep them safe, if it came down between them and himself, he pick them every single time.
"Your choices affected your team, you say they're your family, right?" the caller said, "Well did you ever think that they wanted to save you?"
"They did save me" Emily said, "When it counted."
"You could've told them and they could've saved you" the caller told her.
"They found Declan and kept him safe" the brunette said, "That's what saved me. And I'll always love them for that..."
"Emily..." a voice called out.
"Emily?" she heard someone say, shaking her "Emily wake up."
Emily's eyes fluttered open, causing her to look around. Most of her team was asleep, the movie's end credit were rolling on the television.
"Are you ok?" Hotch whispered next to her, "You were kind of jumping around there for awhile."
"Hmm?" Emily muttered, her eyes focusing on his face, "Yeah, I'm alright. Just a weird dream."
"Dream?" Hotch asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"
A image of Haley and Jack's photo with a despondent look on Hotch's face flashed into her mind.
Shaking her head, "No. It's already gone."
"Ok" Hotch said placing a hand on hers, "Must of been the movie they picked out that caused the weird dream."
"What movie?" Emily asked turning her eyes to the television.
"The Usual Suspects" Hotch said clicking off the television, "I would of thought with everything that we see, they would of picked something more lighthearted."
"Eh" Emily said, "So should we wake them up?"
Hotch gave her a smirk, "Nah, let them stay down here. I guess that leaves me the bigger guest room."
"Uh uh" Reid groaned out softly, "I called dibs when we got here."
"Boys be quiet or neither of you will get the big bedroom." Emily muttered looking over to see Dave stretching on the recliner.
As the three wandered up the stairs, Emily could hear Reid whisper, "Well who is your favorite? That way you can decide who gets the bigger bedroom?"
Emily smirked and said, "You can figure it out yourselves. I'm going to bed."
As she closed her door, she sighed to herself as her two favorite guys bickered over the rooming and was content that everyone she loved was safe under her roof.
Closing her eyes, she sighed and then the face flashed before and she recognized who the mysterious dream caller was.
Stephen King said, "We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."
THE END
Well I hope you all enjoyed this off-the wall story, I really had no idea where I was going with this and not sure what I think of it. Leave a review.
If you want to know who the mysterious caller was, take a guess. I'll let you know if you're right or not. FYI there was a hint in one of the calls.