Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)
Title: Meet My Maker
Prompt: How to Stop an Exploding Man
"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
Winston Churchill
This was undeniably the most bizarre thing she had ever seen him do. "Aaron, please don't!" she yelled after him, but he ran on regardless, pretending not to hear her. She would have been angry had the adrenaline not been rushing through her, and she followed straight after him, pelting through the mall, her feet pounding against the floor under her, gun ready to use at the nearest opportunity.
The bomber ran ahead of them, and she heard in her earpiece that Rossi and Morgan were moving up the fire escapes to the roof to head him off if he went there. They all knew that catching the bomber and talking him down would be vital; otherwise, the damage done by a bomb they knew nothing about could be catastrophic: a chance Hotch wasn't willing to take.
Shoppers in the mall looked around and stopped short as they saw the FBI flak jackets streaming past them at speed. Emily felt her heart rise in her chest but pushed it back, focused on catching the bomber, rather than any fear for the man running ahead of her; the man she adored.
Hotch yelled directions back at her, "Emily! He's aiming straight for the roof!" She nodded and continued her run, reaching the door only seconds after Hotch. They flew up the stairs and stepped out onto the roof, the sun blinded them for a second as their eyes adjusted. Below them in the mall, the customers were being evacuated and the panic was evident as the street bustled with the activity of people getting away. It was approaching sunset, and Emily knew that they couldn't see well enough to tactfully take him out. She stood at Hotch's side and looked out, not able to see the unsub for a moment as Hotch put his sunglasses on calmly and walked forward.
He surprised her by holding his arm out and stopping her when she tried to move. "Let me try," he said quietly. She conceded and provided him with the best backup she could as he walked forward, but in truth she knew that he was on his own now. Rossi and Morgan couldn't help either, and Reid was just coming up the stairs behind her.
Then he surprised her again. "Do it," he said to the unsub as he walked forward, "Just do it. Pull the plug; end your life and likely mine, maybe kill some of my team- go down in history as the man who defeated the BAU. Do it."
The bomber glanced at him, looking him up and down; entirely unsure of what was happening.
"Did you hear me, I said do it! Detonate the bomb and do the world a favour! Nobody wants you here anymore, nobody loves you and nobody will care if you don't ever arrive home."
"Stop it!" yelled the unsub, anger in his face as his nose scrunched up. "Stop it!"
Hotch was antagonising him into dropping his weapons, the team realised. Nonetheless, though his intentions were noble, his method was at best a version of playing with fire. There was no guessing what a killer this destabilised would do.
"Do it!" Hotch yelled at him, "Do it and end it for yourself as well as me, end it so that we don't have to waste money and time looking for you when there are others more worthwhile to find!"
"Stop it!" screeched the unsub, and lowered his hand slightly, the detonator no longer what he was focused on. Hotch continued to walk towards him, and the unsub continued to back away.
"Fine, you killed three women. Raped them, beat them, picked a type and went for it, all guns blazing. And when you realised that we were onto you, you panicked and decided you'd blow up a shopping centre. We knew who and what you were from the time we arrived here yesterday. You were so easy to trace, so easy to track. A more intelligent man would have-"
The unsub roared incoherently, tired of the insults being thrown at him, but Hotch kept his calm and yelled louder than him. Emily felt unease rising- this could end in any of a number of ways, none of them all that good.
"A more intelligent man would have hidden his steps, changed his victims, kept away. But you were disorganised. You left DNA; it was easy to find you. Your stupidity got you caught and even now you're failing miserably. We have you cornered and there's no way out for you. So do it. Pull the plug, blow us up, do it!!!" he finished with a loud and challenging cry.
And then it was happening right before her eyes. Emily lowered her gun and felt, almost in slow motion, the rush of fear and apprehension inside her as the unsub dropped the detonator, abandoning his original plan, and running at Aaron Hotchner. He was unsurprised, expectant even, but had critically forgotten to take stock of his rooftop surroundings.
And so when the unsub barrelled into him at full pelt, with a small oomph he was knocked over. Emily started to yell his name, and she sensed, more than saw, Reid coming to her side and moving with her as they ran toward him.
But it was too late- the unsub had already thrown them both over the rooftop and down the terrifying 40ft fall to the pavement below.
Chest heaving, screaming and in pain, Emily forced herself on and looked over, seeing JJ's disgusted look below at the unsub's broken body on the floor. Morgan ran toward them with Rossi, the two of them racing to see the horror, barely daring to hope that some sort of miracle had occurred.
"Son of a-" Morgan said as he looked over, reaching the edge just before Emily and Reid did. Morgan laid down and reached his arm over- and she breathed a sigh of relief as Aaron's fingers strongly grasped the younger man's powerful arm. She felt herself calm slightly as Aaron was pulled back onto the rooftop, and as he struggled to his feet she was right there next to him.
"Don't do that, ever again," she said, mildly angry.
"Sorry," he said apologetically and honestly, glancing at Morgan and nodding his sincere thanks. "I got lucky- there was a pipe, I-"
"You know, statistically, people are more likely to die from-" Reid stopped when he caught sight of Rossi's disbelieving face. He shut up and turned to leave, Morgan mocking him as they walked to the fire escape to get back down.
Rossi looked at Hotch and shook his head. "If Morgan had done that, you would have called him stupid. What do you call it now?"
"Stupider," Hotch said with a small smile. "I won't be doing it again in a hurry," he pointed out. Rossi turned away, happy that Hotch was okay, and walked back through the mall to meet the police officers below who were still emptying people onto the street which was now littered with the remains of one more unsub.
Emily wasn't sure what to say to him as they stood on the roof, but she noticed that his hand was bleeding and she reached for it, stroking the fingers. He had been cut by the pipe as he clung to it, and he hissed slightly when she opened his fingers and carefully caressed his skin.
"I'm sorry Em," he murmured.
"I would have done the same thing," she said bluntly. He didn't reply, aware that she was still angry at him for playing dice with his life like that.
"But still," she said, "I'm glad there's no long lasting damage." She slipped her arms around his waist under his shirt jacket and felt comforted when he did the same to her, cut hand and all. "Why's that?" he enquired as he leaned closer to her.
"Because I was looking forward to a weekend in bed," she said softly, lifting her head ever so slightly to catch his lips in a quick kiss, "And I was hoping you were going to be there."
He moaned against her lips when she kissed him again, his good hand reaching to the side of her face to kiss her firmly. "Oh, I will be there," he said against her mouth, smiling like a schoolboy as she pulled away and they moved toward the fire escape.