A/N: Ok, here is the next chapter. I hope its moving at a good pace for everyone. Sometimes I think it's a little slow but there is so much to get through especially when it comes to piecing together the case.

Chapter 7

The Mountain

Emily placed both of her hands and leaned heavily on the sink of the bathroom in the Mapleton Police Department. Glancing up at the mirror she barely recognized the women starring back at her. The deep purple of the bags and the blood shot lines that zig zagged away from her brown eyes clearly showed just how little she had slept in the past 11 days.

She ran a hand through her hair and let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding as she felt a soft hand touch her shoulder. She didn't need to look up to know that Garcia stood beside her.

"She has been out there all this time Pen"

Penelope only nodded knowing Emily needed to let whatever she had bottled up, out.

"She has been out there all this time, and it's my fault"

"Em" Garcia forced the brunette to turn and look at her, "This is NOT your fault," she stated firmly.

"Isn't it though? I knew something was wrong, but instead of talking to JJ about it, I went to Hotch," Garcia could almost feel the guilt Emily carried burning through her tears.

"You were just doing what you thought was best, angel." Garcia quickly wiped the single tear that escaped her friend's eye.

"And look where it got me." Emily gave a short laugh, "strong willed, overbearing Emily strikes again."

"Don't you do this Emily, DON'T you dare!" Garcia grew serious.

Emily's eyes widened at her friend's sudden tone.

"You will stop feeling sorry for yourself this instant," the tech analyst continued, " If you want to be pissed at Hotch, fine I get that and I am right there with you. If you even want to be mad at JJ, fine Em, because when it comes down to it, I am angry at her too for not feeling like she could trust us, her family, with what was going on. She didn't trust us to help her." Garcia paused as her true emotions continued to come out in waves of words.

"But if you think for one second Emily Prentiss that I am going to let you blame yourself for this, you have got one hell of another thing coming!" Garcia's voice grew higher with each word.

Emily could only stare at her friend with that trademark unreadable expression, which with the way the conversation was going, Garcia sure as hell was not about to settle for.

Garcia took Emily's hands and forced her to meet her eyes.

"Emily, I have never seen two people more in love than you and JJ. You would move mountains for each other." She had Emily's eyes locked on hers.

" I can't change what Hotch did, what JJ did, what this sick SOB did, but that is the past. What I can change though is the fact that you are going to get yourself together right now," she said reaching into her purse that could pass for a suitcase and pulling out a full size box of Kleenex, "and you are going to move your cute ass over that mountain because if I know our girl, and I do, she is fighting like hell to get back you!"

"Now," Garcia's voice returned suddenly to its regular peppy tone, "wipe your tears Peaches, we got my best friend to find." And with that she marched from the restroom leaving a speechless, but newly focused Emily in her wake.

Gathering herself, she reached into her pocket for the picture she had taken from the bookshelf. Tracing a finger over JJ's pale cheek she whispered with sound resolve, "I'm coming baby, fight for us."

With that Emily Prentiss all but ran out of the bathroom determined to move the mountain that stood between her and the women she loved.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Morgan could feel the tension rise in dining room.

After Rossi had personally called the director of the FBI to tell him that the team would be leaving Mapleton to pursue a lead in another more pressing case, the team had raced back to Emily and JJ's house to go over everything there was about the accident.

Now, four hours and twelve boxes of Chinese take out later, they found themselves at another dead end.

"Lets go through it again," Hotch said standing to pace the room, "start with Megan Kinsley"

"She went missing from her apartment two days before the accident. 5'6, blonde hair, blue eyes, slim build. No witnesses. Parents called the police three days later when their daughter didn't show up for their weekly dinner which apparently she never missed. CSU turned up no DNA in her apartment, but signs of a struggle were evident." Reid recited automatically as if reading from the report itself.

The others sat at various spots around the room taking in the information once again.

"Why her, why Megan?" Garcia bit first.

"She lived alone, no one would notice she was missing for awhile, oh and well she looks exactly like JJ!" Emily shot back.

"ok," Rossi said placing a hand on Emily's shoulder and gently forcing her into the closest chair, "lets look at her more closely. Garcia," the blonde looked up from behind her laptop, "find me anything out of the ordinary that went on in Megan's life over the past 6 months. It's obvious this bastard has been planning this for a long time. Check her credit cards, travel plans, anything that strikes you as different."

"On it sir," Garcia said as she disappeared behind her screen and began to type fervently.

"Morgan, tell me about the cars," Rossi commanded turning to Derek, who had been overly withdrawn since they had arrived.

Derek looked apprehensively at Rossi and then at the other faces who stared at him patiently. A few hours ago he had been certain. Certain that JJ couldn't possibly be out there. The possibility was monumentously against them. But now after their four hour brainstorming session, Derek was beginning to find holes in his own argument, and it started with the vehicle report he clutched in his hand.

At that moment, as Derek locked eyes with Emily, his best friend, the person he had come to trust with anything including his life, he knew he couldn't deny her the chance to find out what truly happened to JJ, the girl who was his sister in every sense of the word besides blood.

"Alright," Derek said more to Emily in a subtle pact that he was fully onboard now than to Rossi's inquiry.

"The pickup collided with the Infiniti at precisely the right time to impact the driver's door perfectly, almost too perfectly." He let his words settle over the group. "Everything about this accident is too perfect."

"First," he said drawing a picture of a car in the middle of an intersection on a whiteboard Emily had taken from her office, "the pickup," Derek drew a the other vehicle impacting the Infiniti, "hits the driver's side door as if the Infinit wasn't even moving,"

"But if she was turning, why would she be moving?" Reid was trying to get on board with Morgan's line of thinking.

Morgan suddenly made a lunge at the boy genius, and as expected Reid jumped back suddenly.

"The question is Reid, why wasn't she moving," the light bulb went off in Reid's head at the demonstration.

"She would have reacted! With no one else on the road, the only lights JJ would have seen would have been the one's coming at her, and she would have tried to move, tried to get out of the way!" Reid shrieked in realization.

"It was too perfect to be an accident," Morgan continued knowing the group hung on where his explanation was going.

"Now, look at the remains of the pickup," he continued holding up the next photo, "the brake lines appear to be severed but nothing else around it has any of the same type of damage," he nodded to Emily silently apologizing for dismissing her arguments early.

She nodded in reply seeming to accept his apology.

Morgan kept going as the anticipation grew. "but that's not the only things that's off," he said raising an eyebrow and placing the photo of the charred remains of the two vehicles on the table.

"Where did the fire start?" he hoped they were following.

"There was no reason for there to be a fire," Emily said barely above a whisper standing again, "if the pickup hit exactly in the right position to impact the driver, nothing should have sparked a flame to ignite the gas tank," she said pointing at the gap between the driver's door of the Infiniti and where the fuel line sat, "something else had to start the fire!" Her eyes found Morgan's once again.

"The fire wasn't a result of the accident," Derek said softly as he placed a hand on Emily's shoulder, "someone lit it on purpose."

Emily had tears in her eyes as Morgan pulled her into a hug.

"Ok, but we kind of already knew that," Hotch stated hating to put a damper on their first real revelation in hours, "it wasn't an accident but what does that tell us about the UnSub that set this all up and more importantly what does it tell us about how to find JJ."

"A lot actually," Garcia said smiling as five surprised expressions turned to her.

"Nothing out of the usual showed up on Megan Kinsley in the last 6 months, but I went back further," Garcia said as they all gathered around her laptop, "8 months ago, Megan joined an online dating service. She got the usual hits, but one hit struck me as unusual. The profile didn't contain a picture, but the guy seemed interested, overly interested, when it came to Megan Kinsley."

"What do you mean Garcia?" Rossi asked clearly curious at where this was all going.

"I mean that this guy, screen name Vonnegut, practically stalked Megan until she finally had to cancel her subscription altogether."

"What do you mean by practically stalked Garcia?" Hotch spoke up.

"Numerous request for communication, bookoo attempts at contacting her through emails and private messages, oh and then there is this," the tech smiled obviously proud of herself for what she had found.

"Vonnegut sent this to Megan, screen name Megpie, four months before she went missing,"

At first the message seemed ordinary for a desperate guy trying to hook up with an attractive girl, but looking deeper the obvious signs of stalking could be seen. But it wasn't the subliminal stalkerish comments that sent of the red flag to Penelope, it was what was written as the last sentence.

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom"

"Shakespeare, the line from Sonnet 116, the same as in the last message JJ recieved!," Reid cried.

"Garcia what can you get from his account?" Hotch inquired feeling for once something had gone their way.

Garcia's expression told him not much, "well, the only contact he made was with Megan, and his account has been inactive since Megan terminated her account four months ago."

"Ok check for credit cards or some method of payment,"

"Already on it boss man," she assured him before disappearing behind her screen again.

"Why keep the account open if Megan had already closed communication?" Morgan questioned.

"Because he would need to use it again if his plans didn't work out," Rossi stated matter of factly.

"So what we do know for sure is that he had four months to stalk Megan and JJ started receiving the messages 6 months ago. That leaves two months of overlap but I think its safe to say that this UnSub targeted JJ much earlier than that." Hotch was running through his train of thought.

It was broken by a squeal from behind the laptop.

"What is it baby girl," Derek asked as he leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen.

"Well, my Greek god of love, I was able to track down a credit card, but unfortunately the card used to open the account was from a guy named Walter Jenkins."

"Why is that unfortunate?" Reid asked confused

"Walter Jenkins is currently in a coma at Georgetown Memorial and has been for the past year."

"Can you trace who had access to Jenkin's accounts?" Hotch questioned.

"Is Captian Kirk the best commander to ever live?" she sounded almost insulted, almost.

Reid smiled, happy he knew the answer to that one.

"of course I can, it will just take some time."

"What do we do until then," Emily could hardly bare to stand still any longer especially with all the information they had just found.

Hotch could sense the urge from Emily to go running out the door to track down this Unsub, but they had to stay focused.

"We need a timeline," he began wiping Morgan's crude automobile drawing off the whiteboard, "follow his actions between Megan and JJ. It will give us a better idea of how and what he was thinking."

"Morgan you and Emily take the messages he sent to Megan."

"Rossi, Reid you have the ones sent to JJ"

They all nodded.

For the first time in 11 days Emily finally felt that the mountain in front of her wasn't quite so impossible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The beam of light began to slowly penetrate her conscious. Feeling began to course through her body once again, bringing mostly pain with it. She fought against opening her eyes. She didn't want to open them to find she was still a prisoner.

The pain from her head and side told her that if she opened them, that is exactly where she would be, still trapped in her own personal version of hell.

JJ lifted her hand to where the pain radiated from the side of her head. She was surprised to find it covered in cloth. The crispness on the outside told her the gash underneath had stopped bleeding, but only recently.

Still keeping her eyes closed tight she moved to sit up. The pain that ripped through her side immediately forced her to to the ground again. Damn that hurts.

She tried again and was finally able to manage a half sitting half slouched position using the wall behind her for the majority of her support. Breathing heavily at the labor intensive task, she finally gave in to opening her eyes.

A small gasp escaped her lips as JJ found two grey eyes staring back at her from the corner of her cell.

"I can wrap them if you want," he said meekly motioning to her ribs.

She didn't know how to respond.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he told her as tears filled his eyes, " I never want to hurt you Jennifer."

She winced as she tried to straighten more. He looked like a frightened child, nothing like the monster who had beaten her senseless earlier. Wait how long have I been out?! she though looking suddenly to the tiny window.

He answered her unasked question, "Y…you passed..out," he fumbeled with the words, "yesterday , I mean. I tried to clean the cut on your head as best I could… but I didn't know about your ribs, they are pretty bruised," he never met her eyes.

JJ shuddered at the thought of him exploring her body while she was unconscious.

He stood slowly, but didn't make a move towards her. " I…I can bandage them now if you want."

JJ silently weighed her options. Her ribs hurt like hell and she was pretty sure a couple were broken. If she was going to survive this, she told herself she needed to stay as strong as possible, and a couple of broken ribs would definitely get in the way. On the other hand, allowing him to bandage her wound, would mean he would have to be close to her again, close enough for her to feel his hands against her flesh.

She looked up at him from where she still sat leaning against the back wall. She needed to use this situation to her advantage she told herself. He was remorseful for what he had done to her the day before. It had broken him in a way. She would use that and hopefully somehow he would let his guard down further.

"Ok," she said softly, "could you also take the chain off?" She needed to test just how far his guard was down already.

His eyes widened in relief at her words.

"ok," he said jumping up and running through the door and quickly returning with a white bandage.

She allowed him to help her stand wincing not only in pain but from the way his touch caressed against her bruised skin.

When he had finished, JJ motioned to the chain around her ankle, "Please." Her eyes gave him the most trusting look she could muster.

He hesitated. "You won't try to leave me Jennifer?" he voice was childlike again.

She shook her head, not trusting herself to give him a convincing verbal lie.

"Good," he said cupping the side of her face, "because I couldn't bear to lose you."

It took every ounce of strength she had not to flinch away.

"I promise not to hurt you again," he leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek. JJ felt the bile rising in her throat but quickly repressed it.

She nodded and he smiled.

"I will be back to check on you soon my love," he told her turning towards the door, "you should probably get some rest."

JJ watched him leave, hearing him turn the seven locks on the other side of the door behind him.

Finally, left alone, she released the breath she had been holding. She had played her part well. He needed to regain her trust, and she had let him believe he had. Angering him had proven futile and very painful, now it was time to try a new approach.

If she could get him to trust her completely, it could give her the opportunity she needed to escape. Tilting her head back against the wall, she closed her eyes. She had to be patient, her time would come, and when it did she would be ready.

A/N: So what did you think? feel free to write a review or send me a pm and let me know!