Disclaimer: Uh… Nope. Nothing is mine.
A/N: Wow, okay, I'm sorry this took so long to get up. I'm not even going to try and make any excuses anymore; it just takes forever sometimes to do. I'm actually really excited for this chapter you guys. It's pretty sad, but I think there's some good development in here. Review you guys! And I'm sorry again that this took so long to get up.
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Maggie didn't want to believe what she was hearing. She couldn't believe it. It just didn't seem fathomable. But it was happening. The sound of the torture of her friend was flowing in her ears and she didn't have the willpower to end it, to stop it. The pure terror and pain that she was sure resided on her face reflected exactly in Jasper's and summed up nicely precisely the way her insides squirmed. But then, as suddenly as the screams started, they ceased, replaced with the hysterical sobs of Jasper's surrogate sister. "Henry!" she cried out. "No! You killed him! You killed him! No, Henry!"
And Maggie heard nothing after that. No she thought. Henry, Henry Griffin couldn't be… Jasper seemed to be thinking along the same lines as her because he shook his head, slowly, refusing to believe his ears. "Jasper," Maggie choked out. "I'm so sorry."
"No," he said, repeating the word over and over again, like he needed to hear it and if he said it, the event would just rewind, like it had never happened. Maggie attempted to console him for the second time past her own grief, but he shoved her away and ran. She followed, but he continued to run, out of the room, out of the house, and down the street.
"Jasper, come back!" Maggie screamed to the deserted road. She was tempted to dash after him, but knew in her head that telling his father was probably the best idea. "Mr. Bartlett!" she shouted flailing wildly back into the house. "Dean Bartlett! Dean Bartlett!" Jasper's father emerged, followed closely behind by several of the FBI agents, looking very much like he had been crying as well. "Jasper left," she said simply, her breathing heavy.
"What?" he demanded.
"He just took off," she continued, her voice, shrill as she neared hysteria. "He heard Ella say Henry was dead and he ran off down the street." At this point, she didn't care that they might be in trouble for listening in when he explicitly told them not to. All her thoughts were on Jasper: finding him and making sure he was all right. Dean Bartlett's eyes widened in worry and he took Maggie by the arm. He led her to the car leaving the FBI standing confused in their wake.
"Which way did he go?" he asked, opening the passenger's side door and helping Maggie inside.
"That way," she pointed. He nodded and closed the door making his way around the car to the driver's side. He started the engine, threw it into drive, and flew down the street, not even bothering to put his seatbelt on. It was only a few minutes before they caught sight of Jasper's form stumbling and dropping to his knees behind a tree. Dean Bartlett stopped the car without bothering to turn it off, and ran into the deserted park in his son's direction.
Maggie slowed as the dean of her school reached his son. "Jasper?" she heard him quietly call. The boy didn't life his head, as if he hadn't heard his father. Behind his hands, she heard the stifled sobs of grief. "Jasper," he called again.
Jasper's head snapped up startled at the intrusion. "Dad," he said, surprised to see the face of his father staring back at him. Quickly, he began brushing the moisture from his cheeks. "Dad, I'm sorry. We shouldn't have been listening. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," he replied. "I should have known you would anyway. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to listen to something like that." It was quiet and Maggie dared not approach.
"Is he really dead?" Jasper whispered into the night, asking the question Maggie wasn't really sure she wanted to know the answer to.
"I don't know," his father answered. "I wish I did."
Tears filled her friend's eyes again and Maggie desperately wanted to just run over, hug him, and never let him go. But she resisted as his father enveloped him in a tight hug. "Your mother was always so much better at this than me," Dean Bartlett commented, but Jasper didn't pull away. In fact, Maggie was sure she saw his arms wrap tighter around his father.
It was a sad picture and Maggie found herself crying silent tears of her own both for Jasper and the possibility of losing one of her best friends.
~UH~UH~UH~
Many members of the BAU, after recovering from the shock of what should have been seen as the inevitable, disappeared to attempt to compose themselves. Hotch had vanished right after the boy's uncle ran out with the girl into the darkness of the backyard, Emily quickly following behind him. JJ had wandered up the stairs, quite alone, but leaving a certain concerned genius pacing at the bottom of the steps. Rossi sat alone in the living room, his expression as it always was: unreadable and pensive. Garcia hadn't moved from her computer. She was typing furiously as tears gathered in her eyes. And this was where Morgan had found himself watching. Just watching and contemplating what exactly he was going to say to her.
"Are you going to just stand there?" she snapped irritably. "Or are you going to actually help me?"
"What's wrong, baby girl?" But as soon as he asked it, he regretted it.
"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice's pitch getting higher with every word she spoke. "What's wrong? Are you kidding me, Derek? We just listened to two children get tortured because we didn't do our jobs, because we couldn't save them. That's what's wrong. Okay?" She banged angrily on the key board and cursed under her breath.
"Hey, hey," Morgan said, bending down beside her and gently taking her hands.
"Don't you feel that?" she asked in almost a whisper. "Don't you feel it?"
"Penelope," Morgan began, "I don't think you can hear something like that and not feel anything. It's just a matter of accepting what happened and learning to live with it." In truth, he wanted to punch a wall. He agreed with Garcia. They had failed. But he couldn't tell her that. She needed to be focused if they were going to do anything to find them.
"I promised that boy we were going to find his cousin," she said. He gingerly removed her glasses and sighed.
"I know, baby," he replied. "I know. But sometimes, you have to remember, we can't save them all."
"But these are children," Garcia insisted. "Kids. And we had so much time to save them and we didn't."
"And that's the job." He hated telling her things he didn't believe in. But she needed this more than he did. She needed to hear this in order to feel better, in order to have even a small chance to get these children home safe. "We don't save them all. As much as we want to, that doesn't work all the time. But we can save them now. And we can find them now. But to do that, we need to focus. You need to focus. Okay?"
She took a moment, thought about what he said, then replied. "Okay. I will search to the ends of the Earth. I'll go back to the age of the dinosaurs if that's what it takes to find them."
"And that," Morgan replied replacing her glasses on her face, "is the Penelope Garcia I know." She didn't smile, and he didn't expect her to. But she turned back to her computer and with much more determination but less ferocity resumed working.
"We need everyone in here," Garcia told the FBI agent.
"I'm on it," Morgan replied, exiting the room and off to find his colleagues.
~UH~UH~UH~
JJ couldn't help the tears that slid down her face. Ever since her son was born, she had been much more emotional. At least that was the excuse she had given herself. The job had been getting to her more and more with each passing case and this one just hit the ball home. And so she, with her back to the door, allowed the warm tears to fall.
But a soft voice at the door told her she was no longer alone. "Jayje?" Reid called in his nearly always gentle voice. "JJ, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Reid," she sniffed, quickly brushing away the tears from her face and turning to face the BAU's youngest member. "Really, I'm okay. Does Hotch need us?"
"No," Reid replied slowly. "I came to back to check and make sure you were all right."
"I'm fine," she said again, but knew that genius profiler Spencer Reid was having none of it.
"I know I'm socially ignorant Jayje," he started, "but I'm not nearly that ignorant. I know you're lying to me. Please tell the truth." JJ avoided his kind brown eyes that seemed almost too gentle, and even younger than his face. "Is it his name?"
It didn't have the same effect on her when she said it in her mind than when Reid said it out loud. It was so much more real when his voice spoke it. "It's not just the name, Spence. It's everything. These poor kids… Shouldn't have we been able to do something? And I didn't even realize that boy had the same name as my son until two hours ago. What kind of mother does that make me?"
"I don't think it makes you a bad mother, JJ," he replied. "It just means that you're distancing your home from you work. And isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
"How can you stand there and tell me that?" she nearly shouted. The poor kid was just trying to help her, to comfort her and here she was screaming at him. If she had been in her right mind, she would have been ashamed. But her emotions were flying wild and she wasn't in her right mind. However, at the hurt expression that crossed Reid's face, the flame of anger died.
Reid sighed, defeated. "This is the job," he said. "And as much as it is a good thing and we save people… we can't save everyone."
"Well, sometimes our job sucks," JJ replied sharply.
"And I agree with you," Reid said. "But I think there's still a chance to save those two children. Or we at least need to arrest the man responsible for the closure of the families." This time, it was JJ who sighed. Reid was right. He was always right. She forgot that he was a genius sometimes. She also forgot he was human and he did have feelings. He had to have felt something hearing that torture. She wasn't the only one on the face of the Earth who had feelings.
Suddenly, JJ felt compelled to hug the younger man. Clearly, he was not expecting it, but reciprocated the hug none the less. "Thanks, Spence," she muttered, affectionately using the nickname only she used.
"You're welcome, Jayje," Reid replied, thankful he did something personal right for a change.
~UH~UH~UH~
The blissful state of unconsciousness melted away as Henry peeled open his eyelids. He was dazed and confused, and in so much pain, but he couldn't fathom why. Most of the throbbing seemed to be coming from his side, so he lifted his arm with a huge effort and grazed the point of the most ache. It stung a little when he touched it but something warm and sticky clung to his fingers. In the darkness, he could see a crimson stain lingering on the tips. Blood he thought I'm bleeding. Why am I bleeding? But he needn't have asked the question because as soon as he did, he remembered everything, all the torture he had endured and witnessed. Ella… was the very next thing to run through his mind.
With as much strength as he could muster, he sat up, ignoring the loud protests his muscles were making, and stared around the room, his eyes frantically searching for her form. Behind him, he finally found her, curled, unmoving with her hand stretched out in a silent call for help, appearing much smaller now than she had before. Without considering his own injuries, he scrambled as fast as he could (which considering how fast he usually moved, was quite slow) to his feet to get to Ella and make sure she was alive.
Finally, Henry finished limping to her side. He turned her so she was lying on her back. In the dim moonlight and when he had gently brushed away the hair that had fallen into her face, he could see the damage done after he had collapsed from the agony. Dried blood coated her nose that appeared severely broken. Her shoulders and arms were layered with bruises and Henry avoided lifting her shirt to view the burns on her stomach. Tears burned his eyes and now he allowed them to fall willingly. But he didn't cry for himself; he cried for Ella, for all the pain she had to go through because he was too weak to save her. "Please wake up," he sobbed quietly, clutching tightly to her limp hand. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He continued to sob the same words over and over again until he had no tears left to cry. Then, he gingerly picked her still unconscious from the hard concrete floor and cradled her gently in his arms, rocking slowly back and forth again paying no mind to the pain radiating from all of his wounds.
After what could well have been years, he heard a small moan and it took a few seconds for Henry to register the noise. Only when he felt Ella tense and groan, "No, please, not again," did he completely realize she was awake.
"Shh," he hushed. "It's me. Don't worry. It's just me." The thick voice that issued comforting words from his mouth was not his own, yet he felt his lips move to form the words anyway and Ella relaxed in his grip.
"Henry," she whimpered. "You're alive." It was clear to him that when he passed out, she thought he was dead. An immense relief passed over her and Henry knew it by just the tone of her voice.
"Shh," he cooed again, gently rest his cheek on her forehead. It lay on his chest, unmoving, but Henry assumed it was only because she was too weak and in too much pain to do anything about it. When she spoke again, his suspicions were confirmed.
"Everything hurts," she whispered.
"I know," Henry replied, suddenly finding he did have more tears to cry. "I know and I'm sorry."
She was trembling, whether it was out of shock or cold, Henry didn't know, but he hugged her closer and ran his hands up and down her arms to warm her up. "Henry, I'm so sorry," she said, her voice shaking. "This is my fault."
"No it's not," Henry replied adamantly. "Don't ever think that, okay?" He left her give him a small nod as her fingers curled to clutch tightly to the bloody and tattered fabric that was supposed to be his shirt, most likely as a safety blanket, to assure her that he was in fact still alive and breathing.
"You won't tell anyone, will you?" she mumbled, and Henry knew exactly what she was referring to.
Henry sighed sadly at the thought of what had occurred. "Of course not," he replied. "Not unless you tell me it's okay."
"Thank you," she whispered nestling closer to his chest. There was a long silence. "We're gonna die here, aren't we?" she asked so softly that if Henry were not directly above her, he would have missed it. She sounded terrified, yet resolved to the fact she had just asked about.
"I think so," he replied honestly yet feeling more than one stab of guilt deep inside his chest. "But I'll tell you something." He lifted her chin until their foreheads rested together and they were looking into each other's eyes. "I don't regret this… because nobody should have to die alone." And such a profound feeling of utter hopelessness washed over him, he suddenly became numb. No tears would come, even as Ella sobbed in desperation, her tears soaking through the fabric lying against his chest. All he could do was comfort Ella is the miserable situation and pray that she wouldn't have to watch him die.
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A/N: And here we are. The end of another chapter. Review my peeps! :D
