Essential listening: Wait, by The Beatles

0o0

Derek pulled on his body armour quickly and efficiently, and Pearce helped him plug in the ear piece, which was a bit of a pain in the ass if you'd forgotten to do that first. She and Hotch would be staying outside, helping the auxiliary members of the HRS field hostages (hopefully) and propel them towards the promised ambulances. He couldn't imagine having to hang back at a time like this, and one look at Pearce's closed, worried expression told him that it was a special kind of agony.

She hadn't complained though, knowing, as they all did, that people were needed outside as much as inside.

"Bring them back," she said in an undertone as he helped her fix up her own earpiece.

He grasped her arm by way of a promise and headed out to the assembly point where Dan Torre and Rossi were already waiting, nodding to Hotch as he hurried past.

Ahead of them, Humvees were already rumbling towards strategically visible points in front of the chapel and ranch complex, invading Cyrus's personal space and (hopefully) keeping his and his lieutenants' attention away from the tunnel. With any luck, none of them would suspect that Leo Kane was contactable – or that he would so readily give up their back door. He'd even labelled the individual rooms inside, with their purposes when he'd been head of the ranch.

Even though they were about to mount an armed invasion into a very hostile environment, Derek felt calmer now; now that they had something tangible to do.

A series of shots from the chapel made their heads snap up. Through the gloom, the penetration team could just make out Benjamin Cyrus, firing a machine gun straight up into the air.

"That's workin' then," Derek observed.

"He wants all the press watchin' this," Rossi agreed.

"Well then," said Dan, motioning for his men to move out, "let's give 'em a show!"

Together, Torre, Derek and Rossi hurried around the back of the ranch and into the tunnel. Torre threw a flashbang into it and they took the first guy down before he even knew they were there. The second man fell hard, but Derek was reasonably sure he was unconscious, rather than dead. They didn't want to have to kill anyone if they could help it, only keep them out of action until they all could be rounded up.

Soon, the air was full of the smoke of flashbangs. They threaded through the tunnel at some speed; so far, Kane's map was completely accurate. Thanking God for angry ex-cons, he turned a corner, Rossi two feet behind him, and suddenly Emily was there, followed by twenty or so women and children. She was covered in bruises, cuts – but she was upright.

"Emily – Emily, you alright?" Derek demanded, catching his friend's arm, probably painfully tight.

"They've wired explosives!" she burst out, limping past, trying to get the followers out as quickly as possible.

"Everyone! Everybody come on!" One of the women – presumably a friend Emily had made on the inside – was moving people along, taking charge. "Okay, this building's gonna blow up, if you love your children, get them out of here!"

"Let's go, this way!" Derek shouted, as Rossi and Torre started moving people down the tunnel.

"Come on, kids!" Emily exclaimed, her throat hoarse.

"Where's Reid?" Derek asked her.

"He's in the chapel with Cyrus!" she told him painfully.

Rossi joined them as the kids started to pour past them. "We gotta get you outta here!"

"No – we've gotta get Reid!" Emily cried, distraught.

"Prentiss, I will get Reid," Derek told her firmly. "Get outta here. Get to safety. Go now!"

"Cyrus didn't call for this!" A very angry teenager hissed at the woman moving people along – her mother, perhaps? "You lied to me!"

"No!" the woman turned around and grabbed her daughter's shoulders. "Cyrus lied to you!"

"I can't – I can't leave!" the girl shrieked and pushed her mother away. "He's my husband!"

She threw herself up the tunnel, back into the wired building.

"Hey!" Derek shouted, as she disappeared from sight.

"Jessie!" the woman screamed, launching herself after her.

"Ma'am! Ma'am!" He caught her around the waist as she screamed for Jessie.

Emily helped pull her back, then Rossi joined in.

"I will get her for you!" Derek shouted. "Rossi, get her outta here! Torre, you get your boys, let's do this, now!"

0o0

Gods but she hated the waiting.

She and Hotch had moved forward with the ambulances when Morgan, Rossi and the penetration team had gone in, keeping to the line behind the Humvees. She and the others weren't speaking; there was nothing left to say.

Gritting her teeth, she listened to the short bursts of radio chatter the team were allowing through. While there was an outside chance that Cyrus could listen in, they weren't going to give anything up over the airwaves.

Rossi radioed through a short burst, followed by two longer bursts: hostages were heading out through the tunnel. Grace hurried to meet them.

Before she even saw the first one, there was a burst of machine-gun fire. Instinctively, she ducked behind the door of a Humvee with the nearest HRS officer. They looked around; it must have been inside the ranch building somewhere – it didn't seem like they were under attack themselves.

"I think we're clear," said the HRS guy – Grace thought his name might be Rick. "I think we –"

BOOM.

The explosion rocked the entire valley.

It was as if someone had punched her with a giant fist, smacking her against the ground. By the time Grace picked herself up, wobbly, frightened women were leading children out of the entrance of the tunnel. She staggered to the first few, mentally yelling at her legs that they needed to start working right now.

"Come on!" she shouted, as they coughed and spluttered, choking on the dust the explosion had freed. "This way, let's get you to the paramedics. Come on." She grabbed the first woman's arm, leading her towards the bank of vehicles.

Everywhere, kids were crying. It felt like a war zone.

Carefully, she kept her gaze firmly away from the ball of fire that had consumed the chapel, because that would mean thinking about the people that might still be inside it. Distantly, she heard Rossi's voice, and she turned towards that instead. He was guiding people along the line, towards the waiting medics, and a couple of feet behind him was –

"Emily!"

She stumbled, and Grace caught hold of her. She was badly beaten and coughing, but she was okay enough to get herself to somewhere safe. Grace let her move on.

No Morgan. No Reid.

"Come on, keep moving," she said firmly, her back to the burning buildings.

Keep people moving, keeping not looking back, she thought, a grim mask across her features.

She felt strangely disassociated; numb. Grace fell back on her training, which was what it was there for. Worry about the things you can control first, that was the key.

Behind her, she heard Emily's plaintive shout. "Morgan?"

Keep people moving. Do the job.

Grace turned in time to see her stumble up towards the chapel, Hotch going immediately to her aid. His face was a picture of the same horror Grace was sure was painted across her own.

No, they couldn't have been in there. No.

"Reid!" Emily shouted, looking back at the fire. "Morgan? Morgan?"

Numbly, Grace helped a boy who had fallen to his feet.

Keep them moving. Don't think. Do the job.

It felt oddly hard to breathe, like there wasn't enough oxygen in the world anymore. Grace's limbs felt heavy and useless.

Do the job. Don't think.

Twenty feet from the ruined chapel, silhouetted against the fire, two shadows staggered upright and started limping towards them.

"We're okay!" Morgan choked.

"Oh my God!" Emily exclaimed, covering her mouth in relief. She staggered up the steps, Hotch and Rossi right behind her.

Grace turned away, letting out an undignified giggle of pure relief. Unlike the others, she stayed where she was, keeping the line of traumatised followers moving. It was enough, right now, to know that they were okay.

I do better on my own anyway, she thought, scrubbing errant tears from her face. While she wanted to run and hug them, the past few days had taught her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she and Reid were much too close, and that wasn't good for a team that regularly put their lives at risk. Not when they needed to focus on saving lives; not when they had a responsibility.

To continue any further down this road now was just silly – and selfish.

No.

This had to end now, and if that meant not hugging Spencer, that's what she was going to do. Besides, she had a strong suspicion that if she put her arms around him now she might never let go, and then where would they be?

Plus, there were frightened people to move. Somewhere behind her, the rest of her team was standing together, watching the flames; Grace felt strangely disconnected from them.

Maybe it's better if I pull away a little, she thought, her heart still racing.

She felt far too vulnerable right now.

0o0

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.

Ayn Rand

0o0

Spencer dawdled behind the others as they strolled through the airport. Everyone was hovering around Prentiss, which he was certain was driving her crazy. He couldn't quite bring himself to join them; her injuries, after all, were partly his fault. If he'd only spoken up… but when it came to it, he'd been a coward.

Ashamed, he allowed himself to drop back a little further.

The majority of the team hit the cross-traffic among the airport stores and scattered, determined to make use of the extra time Hotch had insisted they had today. They had earned it, it seemed, by not dying. The trouble was, he didn't really want anything.

Standing for a moment among the swarms of travellers, he looked around. Grace had headed towards a candy and book store off towards the airport's east entrance. With a semi-furtive glance in the direction the others had gone, he hurried after her.

After the explosion he had expected her to seek him out – she always had before, with that preternatural knowledge she seemed to have when he was hurt or needed her. Even when she had been pissed at him she had stayed close, rolling into his orbit like his own personal, beautiful, grumpy guardian angel. But this time, she had been curiously absent, even keeping herself at a distance from the others. The one other exception had been Michael's birthday, and that obviously couldn't have come around so quick.

Therefore, it had to be something to do with the events at the ranch.

Spencer dropped his go bag by the store's exit to wait and watched his friend weighing up a couple of paperbacks and a puzzle book. He'd thought about her a lot inside Liberty Ranch, when he hadn't been trying to think of a way out, worrying about Emily, or simply being terrified. He couldn't help it – Grace just held his attention.

She spotted him when she turned away from the till. Spencer gave an awkward little wave and she swallowed hard; he watched, concerned, as her guard immediately went up. Apparently, today he was someone Grace really hadn't wanted to see. She started towards him, trying to stuff her new puzzle book into her go-bag, frowning.

"Hey," he said tentatively, as she reached him.

"Hey." Grace grimaced, still fighting the zipper on her bag.

"What did you get?" he asked, feeling woefully under-prepared in the small-talk department.

"Puzzles," she said gruffly. "Which you're not getting anywhere near unless you let me tape your mouth shut."

He chuckled, a little more hopefully. They had almost fallen out once because he was a little too good at ordinary crosswords and had a habit of telling her the answers before she could even read them. That particular argument had ended with Rossi taking the newspaper she had been gently beating him over the head with out of her hands and Hotch making them sit at opposite ends of the jet, like schoolchildren. Even though he'd been stuck next to Morgan, who had snored the entire way back to Virginia, it had still been pretty funny.

If she was joking, then she didn't hate him – though he couldn't imagine what he could have done to upset her.

"They're all yours, I swear," he told her, a small smile forming on his lips.

"Better be," she muttered, and then scowled at her bag, which was still stubbornly resisting her advances. "Oh, this bloody thing!" she snapped, taking it off her shoulder and tussling with it with more force than was probably necessary.

"Here," he found himself offering, and took the puzzles out of her unresisting fingers. The zipper worked first time for him, much to her consternation, and he secured it again with a flourish.

He waited a moment for her to thank him, as she usually would, but she didn't. She didn't even look up.

Spencer frowned, bit his lip, looked down. "Okay," he said, picking up his go-bag.

He set off, expecting her to follow, but she didn't. She just kept standing there, glaring at a point in space, roughly where his navel had recently been.

"Grace?" When she didn't respond, he walked back, gently touching her arm. "Hey…"

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm coming." Still, she didn't make a move.

There was a closed-in kind of frown on her face and he didn't need to be a profiler to recognise an internal struggle when he saw one. Ordinarily, he would have had to move her along or the rest of the team would be getting antsy on the jet, deal with it later. Today, though, they had time.

It struck him that, for some reason, she was right on the edge of tears. Spencer touched her arm again – he didn't like to see her looking so vulnerable.

Grace looked up at him, finally, and then hugged him so tightly that the bruises Cyrus had given him burned fiercely for a moment. It took him by surprise, knocking his go-bag to the ground. He let it fall and wrapped his arms around her, conscious that for a lot of the past three days, that was really all he'd wanted to do.

"I'm okay," he managed, though his throat and voice felt pretty constricted. He went to pull away, as he thought she would, but she didn't move. Surprised, he held her tighter for a moment. "Grace," he said softly, and she tilted her face towards his. "I'm okay…"

She cleared her throat and nodded, but stayed where she was, which was about the moment Spencer realised she was trying not to cry.

"Hey," he said, tucking a strand of her wild, blonde hair behind her ear. "Really – I," he let out a strained laugh. "I mean, I thought I wasn't gonna be, when that bomb went off, but…"

Wordlessly, she tucked her head beneath his chin; the pressure of her arms was gentler now, but still she didn't pull away. He rested his head against hers, breathing in her strawberry, rose and bergamot smell, and pressed a soft kiss into her hair.

0o0

Grace had claimed the seat beside Rossi on the jet, immediately falling fast asleep, even before they were airborne. The others were similarly lethargic, and Reid wondered how much sleep the guys on the outside had managed to get.

Probably about as much as Emily and me.

He wondered, too, why Grace had been so bizarrely conflicted about hugging him. She was always tactile, even if she was angry – almost as much as Garcia at times (though admittedly, between himself and their resident Brit there were fewer boundaries left than there ever would be between himself and his favourite technician), and this sudden change felt jarring and unnatural.

He was watching her out of the corner of his eye, pretending to read, when Emily came out of the tiny bathroom and quietly sat down across from him. Spencer swallowed, giving her a small smile that he hoped would mean she would leave him to his thoughts. The guilt of letting her take that awful beating while he was relatively safe down in the tunnel was still pretty overwhelming, and really, he'd rather not deal with that right now.

Apparently, however, he was out of luck.

"Hey," Emily said, affably enough.

The corners of his mouth turned up a little – an acknowledgement that they were both safe now and that this is good. It was quickly replaced by a frown; he went back to pretending to read, trying to keep things light.

The trouble was (and this was the 'kicker', as Garcia liked to put it) Emily was an extremely good profiler. She knew his first instinct was to dissemble, bury things, and she wasn't going to let him this time.

Gently, Emily took his hands, pushing the book down, getting his attention.

"Hey – hey," she said softly, but firmly. "I need you to listen to me. What Cyrus did to me is not your fault."

Spencer looked away, unable to meet her eyes. Emily was wrong, on so many levels. If only he hadn't been such a coward about it – if only he had said something, he might have spared her the beating – if only –

"It was my decision and I would do it again," she told him firmly. Emily waited until he met her eyes and nodded. "Do you hear me?"

He blinked, pulled his mouth to the side. He did hear her… Maybe it wasn't all his fault.

"Okay," said Emily, accepting this. "Thank you."

Spencer swallowed, lightly rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand like he'd done with Grace. He was glad she was okay and now she knew it.

She smiled and sat back, satisfied, and prepared to doze.

Reid picked up his book again, going back to his covert surveillance of Grace, wondering what was making his friend frown in her sleep.