A/n hello everybody. Once again I have to thank all you wonderful reviewers and anyone that has added this to their alerts. Also a big thanks to my beta REIDFANATIC, for all of her help.

Disclaimer: Only that which is not recognizable belongs to me.

A little knowledge, a little too late.

Reid arrived at Quantico with Hope in her stroller. She had fallen back to sleep with the motion of the car. She still held tightly to her Elmo doll, but her face was more peaceful. Reid wasn't feeling peaceful. He envied his little girl. She could just go to sleep as though nothing had happened. He hoped that his daughter never had to deal with anything like this every again. She was the reason he continued to do this job even when its horrors threatened to consume him and her mother. They had to make the world a better place for her to grow up in and raise her own family.

He made his way to Garcia's office. Her door was partially open and he knocked on it. "Come in," She said in a very distracted voice.

"Hey Garcia," He said, going into her inner sanctum.

She turned and almost squealed at the sight of Hope. Reid put a finger to his lips and smiled, so instead she said. "What brings my favorite girl to the BAU?" He parked the stroller next to her desk.

Reid told her what happened and Garcia hugged him hard when he finished. "Oh my sweet boy, I can't believe someone would hurt my little sunshine." She was frowning down at the sleeping tthree year old.

"I need your help. Hope is staying here with me. I won't let anything else happen to her."

"Ok sugar. I was going to call you anyway. I came up negative on the search you wanted." She looked very annoyed at her failure and Reid wanted to laugh.

"I thought you might, the man that tried to take Hope is Charles Skylar. What can you find out about him?"

"Just give me a minute and I'll tell you everything you need to know." Garcia turned back to her babies, and made them hum. He watched her with that sense of awe that always overcame him when she worked the keyboard like a concert pianist.

"Ok sweet cheeks… here's your info." She said with that wonderful confidence he wished he could have in his voice. "Charles Skylar is a resident of the DC. He just got out of the slammer. He was a former guest of the State of New York on Rikers Island. He just finished a ten year stint for assault and battery. Pick a crime, any crime, and he's done it, except for murder, or if he has he hasn't been caught."

Reid was thinking furiously. The man had someone else pulling his strings, he was sure of that, but who. Did this have something to do with the murder in Pennsylvania? His phone beeped and he took the call. It was SSA Malone letting him know they had Skylar in interrogation. He thanked the agent and told him he would be right there.

"Thanks Garcia, I've got to go observe Skylar. I hate to ask, but can you watch Hope. I don't think observation is a great place for her, besides JJ would kill me!" He asked a little shamefaced.

"You don't have to ask Sugar. You know I love my little sunshine." Garcia looked down at Hope with a fond smile.

"I know… I just don't want to put you out." He said, fiddling with the edge of the diaper bag in the back of the stroller.

"Reid… you're not putting me out. I love Hope. Don't stress about it. Now get out of here and leave us alone. We need some serious girl time together." She shooed him out of her office and went back to the stroller.

"Let's show daddy we don't need him." He heard her say quietly to his daughter and he chuckled. She always knew how to make him smile. Her upbeat attitude made him try not to worry about the two women in his life.

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JJ's head was whirling when the blackness retreated and light began to penetrate under her eyelids. She let them drift open. Sunlight was warm and golden on her left side.

"Spence," she choked out uncertainly.

There was only silence to answer her call. Turning her head was a big mistake when she tried to move. The left side ached and burned. She lifted a shaking hand to her face and felt along the side of her head. It was tacky with something from the hair line to the edge of her left eye.

Oh… you know what it is Jennifer!

She closed her eyes against the brightness of the sun and let her hand drift down to her side. Yes… She didn't have to see it to know that it was blood. She could smell the coppery stench; she didn't have to see the red brightness on her fingertips. The light was warm on her face. Her eyelids began to open again and the dizziness returned. The bright light burned into her sensitive eyes when she tried to look left again.

"Spence…" She croaked once more, but he wasn't there.

Right… She wasn't in her own bed. In fact, the cloth beneath her body was rough and smelled musty. It didn't appear that her arms were restrained. How the hell had this happened? How had she not seen what he was? A blinding surge of rage shot through her whole body. It pushed away the fear that was trying to worm its way into her stomach.

At least Hope was safe with Spence. The desperate hammering of her heart didn't help the dizzy feeling in her aching head. Her head turned to the right and met the wall. It looked like an old-fashioned log cabin. Her eyes were a bit blurred, so she wasn't sure. The must smell was stronger and her headache was getting worse.

Alright Jareau… let's think about this. You've been in this situation before. Think! The ceiling overhead didn't look like a typical basement ceiling. It just looked like a ceiling. Why were un-subs so found of dark, dank basements?

Stop thinking about things that don't matter and figure a way out of here!

Stretching her body and moving her legs proved that her captor wasn't worried about her escaping. She shivered and tried to sit up. He head was still buzzing; but she raised herself up into a sitting position and swung her legs over the side of whatever she was lying on.

Her feet touched the floor, and she hissed and flinched back at the cold under her toes. Wait a minute…why could she feel ice cold stone under her feet? Okay… don't panic. She looked down and saw that her feet were bare. Well… this can't be good.

Her head still hurt like a son of a bitch, but for just a small moment, she wondered if it were all a very vivid dream. She pushed back to the wall and crossed her arms in front of her chest. It was so cold in here.

She closed her eyes once more and decided that in a minute she'd wake up next to Spence. She'd turn over and see him sleeping all curled up like the pill bugs she remembered from her aunt's garden as a child. His hair would be all mussed and sticking straight up in places. He looked so much like a little boy when he slept, that it made her heart hurt. She'd wake him up with a kiss and he would smile at her. Why had she waited so long to leave her doubts behind and just go for it? Yes… any minute she'd wake up and he'd be there with his love for her and Hope shining brightly in his eyes, those wonderful chocolate brown orbs that looked at her like no one else. That love would warm her and keep out the demons that threatened her peace every day.

Please let me wake up and leave this nightmare behind!

She opened her eyes then shut them again tightly. She opened them carefully, but the scene hadn't changedThe cabin still stood around her. It wasn't a dream. She had to get used to it and find a way out.

"Hello… is someone there?" she hated the tentative tone of her voice. "Hey… if you're out there, give me my shoes… right now! She demanded in the most commanding tone she could muster. "Let me go you fucking bastard." She screamed at the seemingly empty cabin. There was no answer.

She looked down and saw that the rest of her clothes seemed to be intact. If she could find her shoes or her socks, she could have a look outside.

Her shoes weren't in the small room she was in. There was only a bed, a dresser and a door. The door led to a small living room and kitchen to the right and a bathroom to the left. It kind of looked like how she remembered Gideon's cabin. What made her heart turn to ice was that her shoes were gone. She went to the door and opened it with no problem. Her heart sank within her chest and fear was kicking up again. She was completely surrounded by woods.

Even if she could overcome her desperate fear, she didn't know which way to run. There was no way her feet would stand up to the terrain. There had to be a way. She had to get back to Hope someway. She shut the door and went back to her room. There had to be another way.

She heard the outside door open and her heart began to race. She wanted to run, but she had to stay calm. She watched as Sheriff Stern walked into the room.

"How are you my beautiful Jennifer? I hope you're comfortable. You and I will be together for a long time." He smiled at her.

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Reid watched the agents interrogate Skylar. Actually… it was turning out to be an easy interview. When the agents told him how long he could expect to spend in the Federal Pen for attempted kidnapping and assault of a federal agent, he rolled over on his employer.

"Hey look… I didn't plan this. I was contacted on the internet. All I was supposed to do was take the kid. I was going to let her go after twenty four hours. He said he would pay me fifty thousand dollars just to take the kid. I wasn't going to hurt her." He said looking frantically between the two agents in the room with him.

"So… tell us who he is and we'll talk about a deal for you." Agent Monroe told him.

"Ok… alright… his name is Adam Stern. He's the Sheriff of Marienville. Can you believe that? What did this agent Reid do to piss off a cop in Pennsylvania?"

Reid left the observation room at a run. He had to warn the team. The first call he made was to JJ's cell but there was no answer. It went straight to voicemail. He phone never went straight to voicemail. Something was terribly wrong.

"Hey baby… I need you to call me back as soon as you get this message, it's urgent."

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Garcia was trying to work and ignore the cute little person next to her. It was a good thing the girl was asleep, or she'd be playing with the toddler instead of working. She sighed, tried to forget that she was getting older, and Morgan was still balking at the idea of a baby for them.

Her phone beeped and it was the man of her dreams. She forgot to be mad and greeted him in the usual fashion, with a touch more warmth than years before as he was her husband and not just a co-worker.

"Hey stud, when are you coming home, so I can ravish that fabulous body of your's." She said hungrily, imagining all the things she wanted to do to him when he walked in the door.

"Hey mama…" His voice drifted through the handset and into her ears making her belly tingle for a minute before her brain took control of her hormones. He sounded horrible, worse than when she'd turned him down the first time he asked her out.

"Derek… what's wrong. What's happened?"

"Penelope, we've got a serious problem. I've got something to tell Reid. I know it's not right or fair but I gotta ask you to talk to him. It'll be easier for him to hear it from you."

"Baby you're scaring me. What's going on?"

"It's JJ… we just got word from the pilot. She never showed up for the flight back to Quantico."

Garcia swallowed hard, "Well… that doesn't mean anything. Maybe she had car trouble or something…"

"No… the Sheriff took her in his car and he isn't responding to the radio call the deputy sent out. We've called JJ's cell at least ten times and she doesn't answer. We were so stupid baby girl. We think he might be the un-sub and now he has JJ."

"I don't know -"

"Hey Garcia," Reid's excited voice came from behind her. She whipped around and saw the fear in his eyes. "I know who the un-sub is. His name is…"

"Sheriff Stern," Garcia finished for him.

"We need to talk sweet thing." She told him.