A/N: Yey thanks so much for all of your reviews, favorites and follows! It means so much!

Yeah lk I have no idea what I'm doing! But as long as y'all like it!

Special thanks to my awesome grandma for betaing this chapter! (You're THE best)

CHAPTER 2

The small group of people had once again squished themselves into the two government SUVs, exhausted from their long travel and from the weight that was hanging on their shoulders. It had taken a while, but Morgan had eventually come back, his eyes puffy and red.

Everyone seemed oddly distant, except for Jack and Henry, who weren't able to understand the severity of the situation they were in.

They had traveled a long way up to the mountains, hoping to escape the oceans that were hungrily swallowing the land. At last, when everyone's eyes were threatening to close, they had come by a little motel in the middle of nowhere. The host had been kind enough to not charge them anything for the rooms, stating that he had no other clients anyway and in times like these everyone should try to help as much as they were able to.

Hotch, who had taken the role of the leader (quite obviously), had stated that they would gather in the morning to figure out a game plan. When Morgan had been resentful, Hotch had firmly told him that everyone was too tired tonight to try and make any decisions, they should sleep it off and come back fresh tomorrow morning.

Emily had gone to bed, feeling nothing, and tried to get some sleep before the day would dawn. But now her eyes refused to close, even though they had been the ones insisting on closing every minute in the car. She had just lain there, on her side, staring out of the black window.

Thankfully, by three am she had managed to get some rest. Her sleep wasn't peaceful, no, it was quite the opposite. She had been tossing around in her sleep, and waking up every once in a while, covered in a cold sweat.

By the time Spencer had come knocking on her door, Emily saw him as some kind of savior and she gladly jumped out of bed, tossing on a pair of jeans and a blue sweater she fancied for outdoor activities, as she fathomed that was what they were going to be doing.

She walked the short distance down the hall to the small, deserted, wooden lobby and out of the door.

Hotch, Will, Kevin, Morgan, Reid and Garcia were already gathered in a circle, their faces gloomy, discussing something very serious. Emily walked up to them, seeing that up close no-one looked like they had gotten much sleep, and she figured she looked as dreadful herself.

"Where are Jayje, Henry and Jack?" Emily asked, noticing the absence of the two children and the blonde.

"JJ stepped up and told me she'd take Jack and Henry to play while we figured out what to do next." Hotch opened up, looking like he hadn't slept a bit last night.

"Oh." Emily nodded. "So, what's the plan?"

"Should we go back down to DC?" Will asked.

"No, we can't know what the city looks like, I think our best chance would be staying at a high altitude for a while." Morgan reasoned.

"But where are we going to stay? We can't stay here for many weeks?" Garcia asked.

"I have a cabin, big enough to house all of us." Rossi offered. "But it is pretty far from from here."

"I think we should go there, and wait this out." Hotch thought. "Then, a few of us can go down and check the city out."

"Only problem is, we don't have food." Kevin opened his mouth for the first time.

Everyone went silent, and Emily almost hoped Kevin wouldn't have said anything. But he was right, they had no food.

"Maybe we can hunt?" Emily asked. "There must be something in these woods." She made gesture towards the huge wave of green spreading out around them to emphasize her point.

"We'll figure it out." Rossi said confidently. "I've got some canned food at my place too, maybe enough for a couple of days while we figure things out."

Everyone nodded and they instantly separated. Hotch and Will probably to search for JJ and the kids, Kevin and Garcia walked a few feet away from the rest, talking quietly. Emily started walking, kicking occasionally at stones that were in her way. She breathed in. She had always loved the scent of the forest. It was somehow so clean, fresh-smelling that she could never get enough of it and it cleared her head like no amount of coffee could ever hope to.

Mountains towered up around her, judging her and casting their shadows over her and everyone else. Emily felt so small and vulnerable, standing there, having to crane her neck just to get a good look at the mountains. She shivered. The wind bit her cheeks, and she hugged her chest, trying to keep warm.

The sounds of footsteps on the gravel stopped Emily in her tracks and she turned around.

"How you doing?" Morgan asked without looking at her. He stopped next to her, staring off into the distance.

"I've never really appreciated the beauty of nature before," he mused without waiting for an answer.

"Me neither." Emily said and looked up at the mountains again.

They stood there, quiet for a couple of minutes, just taking comfort in each others' presence.

"Did you get hold of them?" Emily suddenly asked him. He tore his eyes away from the trees and focused them on Emily. It hurt having to look into his eyes, it was like looking right through a window into his soul. Emily was shocked by how filled with sadness the once joyful brown eyes now were. Morgan watched her silently for a couple of seconds, then looked down at his feet.

"No," he said, his voice cracking slightly.

Emily sighed. She didn't need to explain that by 'them' she had meant Morgan's mother and sisters, he knew it by the tone of her voice.

And he didn't have to tell her that when he had stormed out yesterday, he had tried calling his family.

"I'm so sorry." Emily apologized, not knowing what to say. She knew her words could never bring Morgan's family back nor heal his wounds.

"Yeah." Morgan said and swallowed. He blinked away his tears, before he turned around. "Probably best we get back to the others." He murmured.

Emily watched Morgan walk away. He had a sort of tired, hopeless energy and Emily silently worried about him. She knew he considered the team his family, but they couldn't weigh up to what he'd lost.

Emily sighed and followed him. This was going to be a long couple of weeks.

The group separated so that they would fit into the cars, Garcia, Kevin, Reid, Emily and Morgan in one car and Hotch, Jack, JJ, Henry,Will and Rossi in the other.

Emily offered to drive, since she didn't want Morgan to drive again and she didn't completely trust him in his fragile state of mind. Reid apologized, saying he didn't like driving on small, crooked roads in the forest. Garcia told Emily not to trust her nor Kevin to drive under any circumstances.

So Emily drove, tailing the other SUV, since only Rossi knew where his cabin was. Emily shivered at the thought of Rossi's cabin. She still had the movie Cabin in the Woods fresh in her mind from last weekend when she, JJ and Garcia had had a horror-movie evening. She silently prayed Rossi's cabin would just be an ordinary, nice, calm cabin. In the woods.

Five hours later, Emily was too tired to drive any longer. She would have liked to continue, but her more rational side told her she needed to stop.

Her whole body ached. The sun had set a long time ago, and the night was as calm as it ever could have been. Everyone had fallen asleep in the car, comforted by its warmth and slow humming of the engine.

Reid was sitting on the passenger's seat, his head resting against the cold window, his breath fogging up a small area of it next to his mouth.

Emily looked through the rear-view mirror and saw Garcia leaning up against Kevin, her mouth hanging open, while Kevin rested his head on hers. Morgan wasn't sleeping, though, Emily noticed. He was staring out of the window, not moving, and Emily would have thought he was asleep if it wasn't for his eyes glimmering in the faint light of the moon.

Emily flashed the headlights of the car twice, hoping to get the other car's attention. She did, and the car pulled up and came to a stop. Emily stopped behind it, and got out. Hotch and Rossi met her halfway.

"What is it Prentiss?" Hotch asked, one of his eyebrows shooting halfway up his forehead.

"I can't drive, I'm too tired." Emily explained, slightly slurring her words, even her mouth was tired.

Hotch and Rossi glanced at each other before Rossi spoke out.

"Have someone else drive."

"I can't, they're all sleeping." She half-lied, not wanting to disturb Morgan.

"Oh," was all Rossi said.

Emily looked over at Hotch. His eyes were looking at a point a bit to the left of Emily's right shoulder, apparently deep in thought. Then he seemingly found a conclusion to his inner dialogue, and he said,

"Let's rest for the night. We've still got a few hour's trip, we can start bright and early and should be there by noon."

Emily nodded and watched the retreating backs of the two men as they walked back to their car. She was left standing there, in the midst of the cold, dark road, all alone.

She looked up at the sky, as she had done last night, not sure what she was hoping to see, but she saw nothing. Not a single star was to be seen, Emily guessed it was because of the ash that was bound to rise when Yellowstone erupted. It had surely spread all the way to the east coast by now, driven by the strong winds.

"What are we doing?" Emily turned around and saw Reid standing a few feet from her, watching her intently.

"Stopping for the night," explained Emily. "I'm too tired to drive." She let out an apologetic sigh.

"Right," Reid said and looked up at the sky, letting out a small sigh as well.

"What do you the city is going to look like?"

Emily stayed silent for a minute, weighing her answers. None seemed good enough, so she shrugged. "Dunno."

Reid read her bluntness as tiredness, and proposed they head back to the car. Emily agreed, her tiredness suddenly enveloping her, heavy as a wave.

Next morning, Emily woke up to an irritating ray of sun. She moaned and turned over, trying to escape the piercing source of light. Her body was slow to obey and seemed much heavier than normal. Still, lying on her side with an arm over her face, her surroundings seemed too bright, and she reluctantly opened her eyes.

At first, Emily didn't know where she was, but then everything that had happened these last forty-eight hours crashed down on her. She slowly sat up in her seat, her body protesting, feeling stiff and aching. She mentally cursed herself for not having remembered to lower the back of her seat. Sleeping in a sitting position had never suited her.

"See you're up." Garcia greeted her, smiling weakly.

"Yeah."

"Are we there yet?" She asked Emily, sounding like a child. Realizing this, Garcia shot an apologetic smile at Emily.

"No, we had to stop, we've still got a few hours left." Emily said, and checked her wrist-watch. It said 7:30am.

Emily looked up and saw that the other car was still parked in front of her, and she excused herself to Garcia and left her car.

The other car looked as if there was no-one in it, but when Emily approached it she could make out the sleeping forms of her colleagues through the tinted window.

She tapped gently on Hotch's window, and he jerked at the sound. Seeing Emily, he silently opened the door, not wanting to disturb the others.

"I thought we ought to leave."

Hotch made a attempt to look at the clock, but Emily beat him. "It's seven thirty."

"Yeah. Thanks. Slept well?"

"No." Emily smirked and Hotch almost smiled.

"Right. Just follow me." He said and walked up to his car again.

Emily nodded and went to start hers as well.

They rode in silence, no-one wanting to break it, since they really didn't know what to talk about. The silence wasn't exactly uncomfortable though. The drive was long, and Emily started feeling a dull ache in her arms and shoulders from driving for so long these past days, but she didn't complain. Complaining wasn't something she did.

At about ten o'clock, the little orange light that indicated that the SUV needed fuel lit up. Emily silently cursed. The had filled up the car yesterday morning, they couldn't be out of fuel already. But then again they had driven a considerable amount of miles and the car had been running the whole night to give them warmth.

Half an hour later, the SUV started slowing down, even though Emily had tried driving it as smoothly as she possibly could. Finally, it came to a halt. Emily swore and honked several times for the car in front of her to stop, but it didn't. Maybe Hotch and the others were listening to music, or maybe they were just simply too far away to hear, either way, they didn't stop.

"Is there some spare fuel somewhere?" Emily turned around to face the passengers.

"It's in the other car." Morgan said grimly.

"Why would it be there?" Emily asked with an edge to her tone.

"I don't know Prentiss!" Morgan's voice rose. "I didn't pack these cars! Hotch and Rossi took the fuel since theirs was almost out already!"

"What are we going to do now, then, huh? They are already far gone with our fuel!" She motioned to where the other car was to be seen as a little black dot, sneaking its way up the road almost ant-like.

"I don't know!" Morgan said offended, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat. "Stop shouting at me!"

Reid shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hated when people argued. Fortunately for him, just as Emily was about to open her mouth to fire back at Morgan, Garcia hastily spoke out.

"Don't forget technology."

"And what does that mean!?" Emily snapped at her, irritated.

"We still have our phones." Kevin calmly stepped up.

"And you guys seriously think they're working after all that's happened?" Morgan asked sceptically.

"It's worth a shot, right?" Reid quickly said, glad they had come up with something.

Garcia pulled out her phone. The small group was silent for a couple of seconds, waiting for her to confirm if the phone was working or not.

Emily snorted, irritated. "So?"

"Sadly we are never even going to find out if it would have worked." Garcia said mysteriously.

"Why?" Morgan asked, his voice still annoyed but now curious as well.

"Ain't got no bars." Garcia rolled her eyes at the situation.

The atmosphere in the car instantly became even more irritated and anxious -if possible. Emily banged her head against the steering wheel, making the car shout out in a loud, prolonged honk. She hated this situation more and more with each passing second.

So? Any thoughts on this one? Care to review?;) Pretty please?