Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: written for the het_bigbang on Livejournal. Thanks to red_b_rackham for beta-reading and editing. Girl, you rock!


When she came to again, Georgie gasped and clutched her chest. Her lungs were filled with liquid fire instead of oxygen. Her vision blurred, and she opened and closed her eyes trying to focus. Her wrists were ached and she didn't need to look to know she was still handcuffed to the bed. She sensed someone sitting on the bed at her back. The mattress shifted only slightly - whoever was there had a small and lithe form.

Georgie gulped, steadying her breath. She did her best to look as distant and fearless as possible - things she was far from feeling - when she finally faced him. She had already seen him the first time she had started to come around, but when the blurry figure had first entered her vision then, she had hoped that it was all in her mind - a sick game the drugs were playing on her.

Now she knew that it hadn't been all a dream, nor some kind of hallucination. It was all terribly true.

"You are still the same, Annie. Even after all these years…." He started to play with a lock of her brown-reddish hair, wrapping it around his index finger. "Except… this. The hair. It used to be black. It made you look so… mysterious, and unattainable…" He inched closer and closer to her, inhaling, trying to breath in her very essence.

"Tobias…" she whispered, trying to not cry, to not show her fear.

Of course she remembered him - he was always in the back of her mind, his memory ready to assault her whenever she wasn't on top of her game. What she remembered most was how he treated his enemies. Tobias was a man of opposites: he could love with all of his heart, like no man before him, and he was capable of the most horrid actions, like he wouldn't have cared at all.

"Twelve years, Annie… I spent over twelve years rotting in that bloody jail, thinking about you…." He pressed his nose in her hair.

Hot tears stung her eyes, and she was paralyzed by the knowledge that she was at his mercy. If he decided to hurt her - to kill her - no one was there to save her.

Tobias took her chin in his calloused hand, and forced her to lift her head and meet his eyes, for the first time since the beginning of this nightmare. Somehow, his expression gave her pause - for as much as she could see hate, she could also see a conflicted man, unable to shake his past once and for all.

Maybe… maybe there was hope, after all. Maybe he didn't want to kill her right away. It would give her plenty of time to think of something to get her out of there.

Tobias forcefully and soundly kissed her forehead, almost as it was a goodbye that was too painful to bear. He left the bed and he was already halfway through the door when he stopped to look at Georgie once more.

"You took away what I loved the most, Annie. I don't know what I'll take from you… but I'll find a way, love. We'll get even. I promise you that."

When the door closed and she was allowed the luxury of solitude, she hugged her knees and sobbed desperately like she never had before. Not even the day she had buried her first husband, Noah.

She wasn't scared for herself, she realized. She knew Tobias- and she still remembered his teachings.

If you want to shatter a man… you destroy his family, and leave him to live a lifetime of misery alone, knowing he did it, that it was all because of him.

She was terrified for her family.

So Georgie prayed like she hadn't in years that Tobias was somehow a changed man. That he would whatever he wanted to her, but not her family. She couldn't survive if something happened to Chris or Caitlin. She had survived one loss, buried one husband already, and it had nearly been her downfall. But if it happened again, and all because of her, because she was careless, she would die.

Inside and out.

"Are you going to get mad if I ask you how it's going?"

Chris lifted his gaze from the sleeping form of his baby daughter, peaceful in her carrier, and turned to meet Sonja's worried one. He tried to smile a little, but couldn't.

"Getting her to sleep has been hellish." He glanced at Cait, then returned his attention to Sonja. She looked at him with something akin to pity, and for a split second, he actually hated her. His partner was already thinking he had lost another woman he was in love with. He clenched his fists at his sides.

"Chris…" she said, tenderly, putting her hand on his shoulder. With her voice low like that, she sounded like a mentor. Like he simply had to listen to her and follow whatever advice she was about to offer him. Maybe it had also to do with the use of his given name – a rarity, as she always called him either LaSalle or Christopher.

"Chris, just… Whatever happens, whatever you find out happened in her past, don't get mad at her, all right? She did what she had to, and if…" She stopped and bit her lips, hesitating, like she struggled finding the right words. Sonja was a good friend. She cared about people. Chris knew that she didn't want to hurt him – and yet was scared to. "When you get in a relationship while undercover, it's not for the sake of it. It's something that… it forces you to break in a way. It doesn't mean anything, and yet, it means everything."

Christopher sucked in a big breath to clear his fogged mind. "It's just that… when Rawson told us about MacAulay, I felt like I didn't know her. Not like I thought I did, at least."

A worried frown creased her features as Sonja squeezed her partner's shoulder, bringing him back to reality. Chris focused his attention on Sonja's eyes, and wondered if her undercover jobs had been an issue in her past relationships as well. He knew that they needed agents like her and Georgie, because sometimes wearing a shield and asking questions wasn't enough to close a case and save people, and they needed to get dirty to get to the bottom of it.

Chris wasn't a kid, and he had enough years with a badge under his belt to, rationally, know it. He didn't even know what really troubled him, if it was that Georgie – his wife, the mother of his child – had willingly gone there, or if he was mad because he felt betrayed that she hadn't fully shared her past with him.

"Christopher, listen to me. I've been there, all right?" Sonja murmured. Her partner nodded but clenched his fists tighter. "I've been there, and I know that it's not a nice place. It's so dark that… that you're scared of dragging people down there with you, even just by talking about it. Or that you'll stop being yourself and you'll forever be the persona you've transformed yourself into, even in the eyes of the people who are supposed to trust and love you."

Chris let himself fall back into the garden chair, and cast his loving and worried gaze at Caitlin. She was finally asleep, but it didn't take a profiler to know that she felt that something was wrong.

"Have you ever spoken about it with anyone?" he asked.

Sonja hugged her petite frame and went to seat at his side. She put her elbows on the round table, her chin resting on her joined hands, and mumbled her answer under her breath.

"I'm sorry? I'm not sure I got it…" He glanced at her, thankful for the change of subject.

"Fine, I've spoken about it with Gregorio," she admitted, rolling her eyes. "But only because she's been through the same things and I thought she could understand me. I don't think there's something wrong with her - I'm just not into women, that's all."

Chris laughed softly. "Well, she wasn't into women until she divorced her husband. Besides, even Pride roots for you two."

Sonja made a disgusted sound and was opening her mouth as to speak when Gregorio herself arrived in a hurry.

"So, Isler and Rawson gave me access to the FBI files they have on MacAulay," She shuffled the papers in her hands. "Now, this is far from a perfect profile, but," she paused, coming to a stop in front of them. "I think I may know where he is."

"You do?" Chris stood, witch such energy that the chair tumbled to the ground and awoke the baby.

Gregorio nodded. "Now, MacAulay is no idiot, and he likes to play on his own ground. Considering that he doesn't have that many resources at his disposal any longer, and given what I've seen so far, I'd say he's gone somewhere he is familiar with." Her eyes sparkled. "Now, where could that be, here in New Orleans, considering that he has ties with the Militia?"

She smiled, and Chris knew she was right. The nightmare would have ended, once and for all.

"You're kidding." Sonja jumped to her feet, her eyes wide. "You and the Feds think that he may be hiding at the Holly Beach Compound? At the Militia's old base?"

"Well, after all, what better place to hide than in the middle of nowhere, in an abandoned structure?" Gregorio pointed out. "With the Mayor's cuts, there's no security in that area any longer, no one's out there. It's the perfect hiding spot. And if the guy is as well connected with the Militia as we think, it means that there's a good chance he knows its ins and outs of the base."

With his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, Chris glanced between Gregorio and Sonja. His fists stayed clenched at his sides, now to stop them from shaking. He swallowed hard, wanting to get Georgie back as soon as possible. He was tired of people pitying him. He had sat long enough on the sidelines. Now, no matter what, he wanted to be part of the action, and be there to save his wife, as soon as possible. He knew that rushing into things was never a good idea, but he needed to get her home, away from that madman.

He ran hot and cold, remembering waking up to Georgie sweetly gazing at him. Both he and Cait needed her, and he couldn't imagine spending another night wondering about the kinds of danger she was facing.

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" he demanded.

"Nothing." Gregorio sounded optimistic, though there was still some stress in her cadence. "King's waiting for us there."

"Then," Sonja murmured. "I say we go and save our girl."