A/N: Okay—Let's all take a moment , jump up and down, and scream happy happy things because NBC passed on Paget Brewster's sitcom—and apparently CBS gave hints that there was a (possible) contingency plan if this happened—she may be coming back after all! It might not all be in vain! If it ain't broke—don't break it! Best Friday the 13th EVER.

Lamentation

"The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed."

The Buddha

The slow approach to the rundown warehouse was excruciating. They were going in dark, holding out hope that they weren't too late already. Silence hung over them, thick with anticipation, apprehension, and palpable fear.

"Morgan, Rossi, you two take the back; JJ and Reid, I need you to check the building for another woman, we know that he has to have some kind of hostage to hold over her; Seaver, watch the perimeter, if anyone leaves that building, shoot them. I'm taking the front." He paused then, searching the fearful faces of his colleagues, his friends. "She's alive. Concentrate on that thought alone. We will get her out alive."

They nodded, knowing words failed them all. No one knew they were here. They were the only back up they had. It was the kind of situation that would kill all of their careers if, and when, Erin Strauss found out about their moonlight escapade. They all knew, and they were all willing to risk it. What were careers if it meant one died while they waited, protocol be damned?

It was not something a single member of the team wanted on their conscious, not again, not ever.

They exited the solitary black SUV, quietly breaking off into their respective pairings. Seaver followed Hotch a ways before stopping to take up vigilance at the perimeter; Hotch slipped inside the building through a gap in the ruined siding.

Rossi and Morgan jogged to the back, weapons raised and nodding at each other to enter the gaping mouth of the back door, footsteps hushed as a breeze.

JJ and Reid found the stairwell, a half-rusted set of skeleton steps that led to wary, tired flooring. The pair tentatively made their way up the dodgy-at-best staircase, trying not to alert Doyle or Emily to their presence. Guns poised, Reid twisted the ancient door handle and pushed it open, revealing a pitch dark room.

Flashlights were not an option.

They paused, allowing their retinas to adjust to the sudden darkness. Not even the moon deigned to show its face on a night like this. Reid moved onward, squinting to improve the quality of his vision, and saw a shape in the black. He retreated backward, nudging JJ, pulling her carefully with him. Dust kicked up in clouds as their shoes skirted across weather worn wooden boards, eaten away by mold and rain.

Why couldn't serial killers and psychopaths ever choose stable facilities to torture people?

JJ made out the shape first, squeezing Reid's forearm to slow his progress. It was a figure in a chair.

"We can't afford to startle her," JJ breathed, barely audible to prevent an echo in the dead quiet room.

"I know," Reid replied, just as rushed. "But we need to know if she's alive. I'll check for a pulse, but it's going to be more instantly calming if she hears a woman's voice," he added. JJ gave a quick, agreeing tilt of her head, trying to eliminate as many useless words as possible.

Reid approached the slumped figure of the woman, dark hair, pale as Emily, and ever so gently moved his left middle and pointer finger to her wrist, searching for the pulse point.

It was slow and languid, but it was there. The woman did not flinch. As much as they needed to remove the woman from the torturous chair, they couldn't afford the noise. JJ cringed, knowing every moment they had to delay was a moment of life the innocent woman lost.

They had no choice but to wait.

For what, though, they did not know.

XOX

Rossi and Morgan were not being afforded any more luck. They'd scouted the entirety of the back of the warehouse, but nothing seemed amiss. Their own slow progression to the front of the warehouse was met constantly by loose cardboard boxes, metal scrap, plastic buckets—of which Morgan nearly stepped into after attempting to avoid a misplaced hammer.

Who needed guns and an army when the whole warehouse was an obstacle course of weapons and potential traps?

Rossi moved toward an alcove that cast a dim light. He heard a voice. A voice that sounded distinctly like that of a woman, and namely, Emily Prentiss. He held his hand out to pause Morgan's movement, and waved him over, pressing a finger to his lips.

The distant voice of Emily Prentiss rang clear as a bell to their ears. It proved she was alive. She sounded calm but tense, like a guitar string ready to snap under pressure. Though how she had maintained such an unshaken tranquility in the presence of a crazed, methodical, glorified sociopathic stalker was beyond both of the men.

Morgan's mouth drew into a disgusted sneer. "Why hasn't she pulled the trigger?"

Rossi turned, intending to respond but stopped short.

Why hadn't she? Whether she assumed the potential hostage was alive or dead, it led to the same road—kill the killer. But that was it, wasn't it?

"Because if she kills him, she's a murderer," he replied grimly. "We're taught to bring in these horrendous killers alive, to be prosecuted to the fullest extent. Right now, she's a civilian, a vigilante, and even at her worst has yet to kill any of his cohorts. He hasn't killed her. He may not even have a weapon on him, just to torture her. If he isn't armed and she kills him, she becomes him."

Morgan scoffed. "And that is exactly what he wants."

Rossi sighed. "It's not our choice to make. This is on her."

"For her sake, I hope she pulls the trigger."

XOX

Hotch could hear it all.

Every word that fell from the mouths of the two in the midst of a standoff before him. He hid in the safety of a secluded corner. He couldn't afford to jump out in the middle and start shooting, but how to draw her attention, to let her know he was there.

From the shadows he could see her right arm straight out, defiantly posed, gun in hand and aimed at the ready. He felt a sense of morbid pride he hadn't dwelled on in a long time. He would justify her murdering the man. Would stand by her no matter what.

A prison would not hold Ian Doyle. The gates of Hell would have to bear that burden soon enough. Death was the only thing that could contain a monster such as he.

Emily's voice was lowering in pitch, becoming more taunting and deliberate. She was practically asking him to shoot her, and that she hadn't shot him yet told Hotch that she either didn't have a shot, which he doubted, or he wasn't posing a threat, which frightened him even more.

She said the final thing that would tip Doyle's mood profoundly in her favor.

"You can't kill me, because I have what you want."

Hotch could feel the temperature drop as his blood turned cold.

She'd given him the last bit of information to send him over the edge. She let him know she had his son without outright saying it. She had his son, and he would never see him. It was her final taunt as he heard the click of a trigger.

He moved out of the darkness then, as if time would stop for just a moment, allow him to reach her in time.

But time would not allow for such a request.

The silence of that moment shattered by two bullets slicing through the air, reverberating off the warehouse walls.

"Emily!"

He screamed. It was strangled and tormented.

But she stood, arm still held out. She half turned to look at him then, a stunned sightless look across her lovely face. It was almost apologetic.

Her trigger arm started to lower; her left hand, he realized, pressing against her left side. She glanced down, opened her mouth then, no words came, and she pulled her hand away. It was covered in red, sticky and dripping forth at a consistent rate.

She fell then, and he caught her.

"Morgan, Rossi, call an ambulance, now!"

He knew they already had though. The moment the gun went off, they were already in action. Morgan on the phone, Rossi bursting through the small archway, thirty feet from where Doyle had fallen.

Her eyes were strange and out of focus. She looked beyond him. He didn't realize he was crying until his tears splashed across her cheeks, and she blinked lazily. His hand pressed firmly where hers had been a half second before.

"It's….over," she whispered brokenly.

He sniffed, wanting to alternately slap her and never let her go. "It's over, but you can't leave this time, you get to stay this time," He said as authoritatively as he could with the strength that he had. "Do you hear me? I'm ordering you not to die, you left once, and you're never allowed to leave again."

"That's…a lot to…ask…right now," she tried with a smile. "Can't…promise much."

"Hotch—he's alive!" Rossi called across the room, guiltily not wanting to see his friend die, if that was such the case. Morgan even halted his advance towards Hotch and the fallen Emily. He had already watched her die once before, and it gripped him and rooted him to the floor. Memories of last year in another warehouse still stung fresh in his mind.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

"Hotch…" Emily gripped his hand as tightly as she could. She pressed the still warm gun into his palm. "For me."

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, gently laying her on the floor. "Don't leave me."

Her eyes followed him as he stood.

The fifty feet between his fallen friend and the maniacal killer was too long for his liking. The injury Doyle had sustained mirrored Emily's. He had the nerve to laugh.

"Rossi, Morgan…I need you to go to Emily now."

His cold, solid tone held no room to argue, and they obeyed wisely.

He stared down at the man that had plagued their lives for over a year. He'd destroyed so much of them. He would no longer win though. He looked into his eyes, the last time he ever would.

"This is for Emily, and the son you will never get to see again, for all the lives you've ruined. I'll see you in Hell Doyle."

Aaron Hotchner held up his end of the bargain.

He put a bullet in Ian Doyle's forehead.

XOX

As the ambulances rolled in, Seaver ran to guide them into the warehouse where everything had taken place. She didn't know what was happening on the inside, but the three gunshots she had heard did not signal a happy ending.

She gasped at the sight of Emily, had to turn away, ran out the door before doubling over, chocking on nothing but air.

She couldn't watch it happen. Not again.

She lowered herself onto the dilapidated stairs and cried.

XOX

Having heard the two immediate gunshots, Reid and JJ gripped each other's hands tightly, a hopeful reassurance that it wasn't Emily, or Hotch, or any one of them.

"We've got to move her now, her pulse is slowing. JJ, are you with me?" Reid demanded as firmly as possible, one of them had to remain calm. And it seemed this time it would be Reid.

JJ nodded disjointedly. They'd unwound the ropes from the lookalike's hands and ankles. She was not conscious, but she was thankfully shorter than Emily, and Reid managed to lift the woman with a strength JJ hadn't thought he had.

She managed to maneuver them around the same pitfalls they'd avoided earlier, and got to the stairs without much problem. JJ cautiously guided Reid down the unstable stairs, a feat that took a good ten minutes on its own.

And then they heard the third shot.

Reid's face fell, and JJ looked up, knowing.

It had not gone well.

XOX

It wasn't like last time, Emily thought idly.

She felt everything last time. The pain made it real. A wooden stake in your stomach had that effect.

This though, this she did not feel. And that scared her and freed her at the same time. Free. She was free of him. She didn't have to be afraid of her shadow any longer. Her vision blurring, she'd watched Aaron pull the trigger and end it all. For her.

She only hoped she'd be able to thank him.

Rossi and Morgan tried in vain to talk to her, to keep her speaking and awake. But she didn't have the strength to talk to them; she just wanted to rest for a moment.

But even then, peace was not allowed.

Lights danced across her vision. Slurred questions were demanded of her.

What's your name?

What was her name.

Lauren Reynolds was dead. That was no longer her name. It was buried in a car crash eight years ago.

What's your name?

Emily Prentiss was dead. Could that be her name again? Could the dead come back and reclaim what was theirs? Her friends certainly seemed to think so. But she was still buried in a cemetery.

What's your name?

Alice Liddell was not dead. Alice had rescued a boy she called Charlie and brought him home as Declan, brought him here to her friends. Alice had shot Doyle.

But Alice Liddell did not exist, so therefore, Alice, too, was dead.

What's your name?

She swallowed thickly. There was finally pain. She felt it blossoming, even as the lights began to flicker and foreign words were yelled across her trapped body. She was moving, and something pulled fervently on her hand, tugging her back.

It was persistent. The tugging. She wanted it to go away, but she wouldn't let it for some reason.

Tell them your name.

A demand this time. No room for question. It was familiar. It made her smile.

She gripped the tugging hand tightly.

"Emily. My name's Emily."

Anatole France said "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."