Everyone had been practically begging me to write a chapter about Emily and Hotch...

So, I have finally 'caved', or (mischievously grinning) did I plan it this way all along?

Well, I have partially acquiesced to your demands ;)

Hope is the expectation that something outside of ourselves, something or someone external, is going to come to our rescue

Dr. Robert Anthony

She tried to think. Thinking clearly was a good sign. Not being able to think was a bad sign. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. If the darkness of her eyes closed was darker than the room she just might be able to see something. She refused to acknowledge the fact that that particular piece of information, that recurring idea, hadn't actually worked so far.

She was in a room. That much she knew for sure. A room with four walls, a floor and possibly a ceiling…probably a ceiling. Not that she could see it or even feel for it. There were no chairs, or nooks, or ledges, to stand on to test that theory. But given the fact that it had been pitch black for…however long she had been in here…it was a pretty good deduction to assume that there was a ceiling. The room was rectangular in shape, six paces long, four paces wide. The floor was smooth, not too cold, the walls were the same. And it was dark. So dark. At first she had tried to keep track of time, anything that could signify how long she had been in here. There were no objects in the room. No objects, no lights, no movements, no sounds.

That was probably the worst bit actually, Emily thought. No sounds. Not just no sounds from the outside, there were no sounds in the inside either. Not even from her own voice, she had tried.

She hadn't freaked out when she had awoken, slightly groggy. Felt like a hangover, but she hadn't been that drunk. It had felt more like nausea than anything else. More nausea-sick than nausea-hangover. She assumed Hotch had brought her home. She remembered that much at least. Had he put her in bed, or had she made for the couch? There should have been some lights on in any case. Both her bedroom and her lounge room overlooked the city, the lights were both soothing and pretty to look at when she couldn't sleep. Which happened a lot.

There were no lights tonight, did the city lose power or something? She had attempted to stand up, that's when she realized she was on the ground. That was definitely not something Hotch would do to her. He was nothing if not a gentleman. After stumbling about the small room for a short while she knew…she wasn't in her house. She clearly remembered Hotch though, remembered how comfortable she felt pinned under his arm, hugged into his chest. The beat of his pulse in her ear. The smell of him surrounding her. The best cure for a demanding headache she had ever had. Perhaps he had taken her back to his place. She tried to call out to him.

A horrible, horrible noise had greeted her.

It was painful, not exactly an easily explained pain, it wasn't the normal type of pain. Her head pounded, she wasn't sure if it was the hangover, the nausea, or the noise. It was too loud, too much, too painful, she wanted it to stop. Eventually it did.

She tried to call for Hotch again. The same noise bleared into the room, resounding off the walls and straight into her head. She nearly collapsed under the pressure of the noise. It was terrible. She choked out a stifled breath. She would not cry. Pain induced tears did escape though she chose to ignore them.

She searched the room in silence. Contemplating what might have happened. This was no time to start falling apart. No matter how much she wanted to. It was increasingly frustrating because she had to feel around to get a handle on what kind of room she was in, what was happening.

She had tentatively tried to call out to Hotch again, this time in her fear the word came out softly, like a whisper. She had called out, 'Aaron'. The noise had returned, she had crouched low to the ground and covered her ears. She waited for the noise to stop. Finally it had, the silence found her sprawled out on the ground as if the noise was hovering over her and she was trying to get as far away as possible. It was quite clear that she was to remain absolutely quiet, no noise at all, if she wanted to avoid the piercing, painful sound.

That had been four sleeps ago.

She had purposefully tried to stay awake. She had at least figured out some of what was happening. She was being tortured. Isolation and sensory deprivation. She also knew that every individual had a different reaction to this kind of torment. Some could withstand long periods of isolation with no ill effects; others couldn't even handle short periods without beginning to deteriorate. She reconciled to herself, that at least the room, this cell, this prison, was clean. There weren't any rodents, or cockroaches, or spiders. She also knew that due to her isolation and deprivation of sensory contact and experience, it was likely she might start to hallucinate. She would have to watch out for that.

She could deal with the silence. She had been silent for a long time growing up. Going to parties and dinners and ceremonies where she didn't talk for the day, only to come home and have no need to talk to anyone there either. Once she managed to avoid talking for a month, until Serafina (one of her mother's maids) had figured out what was going on and purposely set out to make her talk. She still kept in contact, birthday cards and Christmases.

The darkness was what worried her. She wasn't afraid of it, but it made keeping track of time difficult. Especially since she'd realized that there was something in the room that made her sleep. About four or five sleeps ago, a smell had pervaded the room. Sweet, almost pleasant, it had spread around her. She hadn't known what it was the first time, thought maybe there were flowers in the ceiling, or a factory nearby. She did remember struggling harder to stay awake. When she woke up. There was a paper plate with a sandwich on it. And a bottle of water. Well, at the least whoever had her didn't want her to die just yet. They were providing sustenance. The next time the smell came, she had tried to fight it. Holding her breath for as long as she could, eventually she had succumbed to the blankness. The paper plate and bottle of water she had used were gone, and another pair had replaced it. She figured that this was her only means of passing the days. She had been fed four times. She assumed that meant four days had passed. But Gideon had once tricked a man by the same type of thing; she couldn't fully trust this place. Or anything in it.

She had deduced that she was being drugged with some kind of anaesthesia. At least, when she woke up she hadn't been physically violated. It was as if…something about all this was familiar. Why couldn't she place it? Was it a case she had read about, a case she had studied? The smell returned.

Early on Emily had realized that she was having a reaction to the anaesthetic, when she regained consciousness the second time, the nausea had returned double-force. After the third time, she had started shivering uncontrollably. Every time the sedative had worked its way out of her system, she only had a short time before the smell returned. How long did it knock her out for?

She hoped that Hotch was all right. Was he in another room, waiting in darkness as well, wondering about her?

Did the team know they were missing? They probably did, she hoped so at least. They were observant, trained to see things where no one else did. She cringed at the thought that they were probably going through her apartment. Seeing it the way she had left it. Too many things had been weighing on her mind to even contemplate fixing it up to her usual standards. They most likely already had gone through her apartment, if her assumption of time passing was correct, she gave into the thought that they had all seen her apartment and hoped they wouldn't be profiling what it meant for her mental state.

She pictured Morgan, his flirtatious grin brightening anyone's day. Garcia's beautiful quirkiness, her shining personality and her love for life. Reid's innocence and wonder. Rossi's determination and knowledge. JJ's sweetness and courage, to stand up in front of the ruthless reporters and guide them to what the BAU's purposes were.

She hoped the team would figure out what was going on, where she was, where Hotch was…

She hoped…

I hope I have sated everyone's desires, actually...no I don't...it's much more fun when you guys have no idea what is going on...

It means I wield all the power, hehe...you must review to find out more!

(Nah, I would post anyway)

Arc