A/N: Hello! Thanks to those who have reviewed this story so far! YAY! I love them by the way and because of them, we get this new chapter.

A brief note: This story is taking place slightly before Season 1, and will meld along season 1, only won't go into details of the cases, but focus along what happens in the lives of our characters before and after each case. Still AU in it's own special way. Aislynn is 28, and Mac is, as mentioned last chapter, 24. Mac is Pen's cousin, and Aislynn is the sister Mac didn't have.

Anyhow… enough chit chat… on to the story… Still dedicated to MissAmieB.

Love always

Nicole


Both women sprung at him. Mac wrapped her arms around his neck and tried choking him. Seth grabbed Mac's arm and yanked on it, swinging her to the ground. Suddenly the room was filled with shouts as two masculine voices over came their shouts. "FBI! Put your hands up."


Mac was on the floor clutching her shoulder. Aislynn was still fighting against Seth's seemingly inhuman strength. He grabbed at her throat when a gunshot echoed through the room, and then screams of agony followed. Aislynn fell to the ground gasping. She crawled towards Mac, as two tall figures dove at Seth. Both girls ears were ringing from the gunshot in the enclosed space, but they could hear a scuffle and finally handcuffs clicking.

"Mac?" Aislynn asked her best friend.

"Aislynn, you okay?" Mac replied with another question. Her shoulder was killing her but she was more worried about the woman who was like her older sister than anything.

"I've been better." Aislynn hugged Mac.

Mac exclaimed as her shoulder was nudged ever so slightly.

"Mac? What's wrong?"

Mac grimaced. "Shoulder. Dislocated." She could barely get those two words out. It hurt so much.

The lights flicked on and they were temporarily blinded. Suddenly Pen's panicked voice filled the room. "Oh my God! Mac!" Pen ran to her cousin. "What happened?"

"She thinks her shoulder is dislocated." Aislynn replied, worry was filling her voice. "I'm sorry Mac. It's my fault."

Mac shook her head. "No it's not. It's that asshole's fault." She looked around her. "By the way where is he and who were those guys?"

Aislynn nodded. "Yeah. Who are they and why are the FBI here in our home?"

A deep masculine voice answered. "Because Penelope called us."

They all turned. Two men now stood in their room. One was an African-American, tall, very handsome, and built. Aislynn swore he must work out daily to keep that body. The other was a little taller, Caucasian, with dark brown hair, Mac would actually call it black, very handsome with chiseled features and his eyes were a dark chocolate color. He too had a very nice body.

Penelope introduced them. "Mac, Aislynn, my pleasure to introduce to you, my chocolate God, Derek Morgan, and my very debonair boss, Aaron Hotchner."

Both girls smiled. Both men returned the smiles.

The one Pen introduced as Aaron asked. "What's wrong with you shoulder?"

"Hotch, I think it's dislocated." Pen answered.

Mac nodded. Hotch called down the stairs. "Hold that bus. We got an injured civilian."

There was a ruckus downstairs and suddenly two paramedics were in the already very crowded room. They assessed both girls and said that both should be brought in to be checked out, and that Mac had definitely dislocated her shoulder. They helped both girls down the stairs and into the ambulance. Seth was sitting in a squad car bitching and yelling at them. They just tuned it out. This time he was going away, and they would be long gone before he ever got out. Hotch agreed to drive the girls' Charger to the hospital, while Morgan and Pen would follow in his Denali.

It didn't take them very long to get checked out. Mac was sent straight to x-ray while Aislynn got a couple stiches in her lip and checked for a concussion. Surprisingly, despite the fact that they had fought to stay alive, they escaped relatively unscathed. Once Mac was back, the two were put into a shared room for a night of observation. The doctors medicated Mac and reset her shoulder. Soon they were all settled in for the night, and Pen, Derek and Aaron came in to talk to them. Once the questioning was done, Morgan went to submit the reports to the Calais P.D. and left Pen and Aaron to keep them company. Pen fussed over them like a mother hen, causing both girls to laugh, which in turn caused a little bit of pain because of bruises and such, but it was a good pain.

Aaron felt an attraction to the youngest of the two. He had just ended it with Hailey. Despite being high school sweethearts, she didn't want the same things he did. She didn't want to get married or have a family. That was something Aaron wanted, so he had told her it was over. Luckily he had never popped the question to her. He shook his head. That was last year. This was now, and for some reason, Mackenzie Lambert, had caught his eye, and he wasn't letting her out of his sight if he could help it. Maybe he'd talk to Penelope and see what information he could get. The main point of was she involved with someone here. He knew the jist of why Mac and Aislynn were moving. They had just arrested part of the problem, the rest was that they wanted out of the small town, and he didn't blame them. So he decided to sit and observe and hope that maybe Fate was smiling on him for once.

Aislynn hated the drugs they had given her. They made her feel half dead. But she was alive and Seth was gone. She was so thankful for that. She sighed. D.C. would be a new start for her. She had brought up by a single mom, making her tougher than most. Her "dad" had run before the stick showed the two tiny pink lines. Her mom had told her that she told him she suspected she was pregnant and he told her to do the test and he'd wait outside the door. When she opened the door to tell him, he was gone. So she had Aislynn on her own. She was the best mom possible and Aislynn swore she got her will and determination from her. Another time, Aislynn had come home upset over not having a dad, her mother told her what her name meant.

"Aislynn is dream in Gaelic." Her mother smiled. "I chose it because, despite my life being a nightmare, you came in and turned it into a perfect dream."

Aislynn had smiled at that, and realized she was probably better off without a dad if he was the man her mother told her he was. She laid back. It was around that time that she had met Mac. Mac was from a single parent household too, and the two became inseparable. Sometimes they wondered what it would've been like if their parents had gotten married, since Mac and her older brother was raised by her dad. They used to laugh and think about it all the time, but in the end they realized that friends are the family God forgot to give you. They were more than just best friends, they were sister, even if biology said they weren't. She finally decided to go to sleep, so she dozed off, her sister in the next bed. No matter what, nothing would ever tear them apart.

Mac was sore and the doctors insisted on giving her morphine. This was a bad thing for her, an amusing thing for anyone around her. She had had morphine one time before this, and it sent her to lala land. Aaron and Penelope were talking to her just as the effects of the medicine kicked in. She started giggling non-stop and then the best part came.

"Bunny!" she exclaimed pointing to a very obvious empty spot on her bed.

Hotch looked to Penelope. "Is she okay?"

Pen shrugged her shoulders. She didn't know. "What bunny gumdrop?" She asked. She was concerned that maybe she had a concussion too.

Mac grabbed the bunny she was seeing, and began petting it. "This bunny."

Pen went to get the doctor while Aaron tried to keep Mac entertained. He didn't think it would be go if she accidentally woke Aislynn up with her antics. "Where did the bunny come from?" He asked. He felt silly playing into this, but if it made her calm, then so be it. He did it with the psychos he worked with on a daily basis.

"I don't know really. One minute the bed had just me in it, next bunny was there."

So while waiting for Garcia to come back and hopefully have the doctor give them an answer, Hotch talked to her about the bunny and other things. She was probably hallucinating but who knew. Drugs, of any variety, all had a different effect on individual people. The doctor came in a few moments later, and after a couple tests announced that it was just a slight consequence of the medication and that it would be better once they had her off the morphine.

"Good point for y'all… At least you know she isn't a drug addict." The doctor laughed as he walked out of the room to inform the nurses to change her medication.

Pen shook her head, Hotch laughed and Mac just stared at them in a daze.

Eventually Mac fell asleep, and that was when Hotch escorted Pen out of the room. "Penelope, why don't you go get some rest. Morgan'll be back soon."

"I can stay Hotch. She's my cousin."

"I know, but you've been up since when?"

"Yesterday." She answered after looking at her watch.

Hotch nodded. "Then go get some sleep."

"But what if she wakes up?"

"I'll stay. I'm pretty sure that an FBI agent in the room will keep both of them calm."

"Are you sure, sir?"

Hotch laughed. "Don't sir me, and go. Derek's downstairs waiting for you. Come back first thing in the morning."

"Okay. Thanks Hotch." With that Penelope went to main level and went with Derek to the hotel and they slept. They had arranged for a moving van to be at the house for nine that morning, so they didn't sleep long, but they got some sleep. They told the movers what to do, and Pen took the Denali to the hospital, leaving Derek to oversee the rest of the loading.

When she arrived, the nurses were helping the girls get dressed, so Hotch was outside the room.

"How are they?" She asked.

He smiled. "Fine. They want out of here so bad that they were buzzing the nurses station at 6 this morning."

Pen snickered. "They are impatient."

Hotch did a face palm. "Understatement, Penelope, major understatement."

"Something up boss man?" She cocked her head to the side.

He told her no. She believed him, about as much as she could throw him, which wasn't very far. She just nodded her head and went in to check on them. He wasn't revealing his hand that fast.

Not ten minutes later, the three women exited the room, prescriptions and other papers in hand. Mac was going to be in a sling for a couple weeks, putting her on the "gimped" scale for her job as a photographer. Good thing that their business wasn't going to be up and running for at least a month. Hotch drove the Charger again, following behind Penelope who had Aislynn in the backseat, lying down to ease the throbbing in her head, while Mac sat in the passenger seat of her car. She and Hotch chatted for a while then she dozed off again, most likely because of the second dose of painkillers she had been given before being discharged. Soon they were at the house, and Mac woke up and started apologizing.

"Why are you apologizing to me?" Hotch asked.

Mac flushed red. "Because you probably think I'm a complete douche for just passing out like that."

Hotch snickered a little. "No. Don't worry about it. I know those meds knock you out. Plus you need sleep."

Mac turned a deeper shade of cherry. They got out of the car. Aislynn was still asleep but she looked peaceful so they decided against waking her. Mac handed them the address for the house that Aislynn and her had bought, with a little help from their parents. Derek took over driving the Denali, and took the lead, Hotch and Mac followed, the movers taking the rear. They were on their way now. They left Maine in their rearviews, and headed to a bigger and brighter future in Washington D.C.

The trip didn't take that long, and soon they were home. Morgan, Pen and Hotch volunteered to unpack, allowing the two girls to rest. The rested, with much protest, mainly because they didn't want to be a burden to anyone. They lost that argument, and crashed on the futon as soon as it was bought in and put in the spot they wanted it. Once everything was unpacked, the others left a note saying they'd be back the next day to help show them around, and they headed home. Pen and Derek to their brownstone to talk about the future, and Hotch to his apartment to think about Mac and if they could have a future together. The girls dreamt peacefully. Mac about the freedom she had just gained and Aislynn dreamt of a man she'd never seen before, he was familiar yet in the shadows. Who was her mystery man? She had no idea, but she felt that if she ever met him, she'd know it in a heartbeat.


A/N: Well, that went a little better this time around. Thanks to my professor who was ranting about Mel Gibson this morning for giving me the inspiration to tune him out and write for a bestie! So, click the little button and let me know what you think! I love all reviews, and always love your input.

To Amie, I hope you enjoyed my brief lapse in sanity with the bunny part.

To all of you, that has happened to me, and yes I see bunnies when given morphine. Moral of the story… drugs are bad.

Anyhow… until next time!

Love always,

Nicole