Title: Growing
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Time Is Running Out (Part 2)
Characters/Pairing: Prentiss/Jordan
Genre: Drama/Angst
Summary: You've got plenty of time to re-evaluate your life when you're cuffed to a chair in an unsub's basement.
Growing
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates
VII
My eyes open, and I start hoping like hell I'm in my own bed, and it's all some ridiculous dream, but it's not. I'm still lying here on the kitchen floor, bleeding to death. I cling to consciousness like it's the most beautiful damn thing in the world. Pain seems to intersect with numbness, and I can feel the stinging pain at my abdomen, and the throbbing of my head. Concussion, maybe. It's not a particularly soft floor. I'm going to need to start a tally soon enough.
I clamor for the phone, fingers slipping against it, trying to grab hold. It takes every bit of strength to lock it in my grip and bring it back up to my ear. Doing so exacerbates the pain, and I let out an involuntary whimper.
Not the most overwhelming display of strength there, Prentiss.
'Emily?' It's Morgan's voice again, and he sounds far away, though I'm pretty sure that's the head wound.
'Please…' I manage to choke out. 'I don't think I can…' Words fail me at this point, but that's one of the great things about working with profilers. They don't always need words.
Of course, that can be a bad thing when you're trying to keep secrets, but right now, I don't really give a flying fuck about secrets.
All I want is to go home.
Dorothy Gale, eat your heart out. Emily Prentiss from Quantico is here to take the stage.
'Garcia's tracing the call,' Morgan says. 'Stay on the line. We'll be there soon. Hold on, Emily…Keep talking.'
Keep talking. What am I going to talk about? I'm lying on the floor bleeding to death in some sociopath's murder house. Talking about the weather feels a little mundane.
'Tell me about Sarah.' His voice crackles, and for a second she almost thinks that he's crying, but that's not right. Derek Morgan doesn't cry. 'What's her favorite toy?'
'She likes the…' I scrunch my brow, trying to remember. 'She likes the stuffed dragon that Garcia gave her.' I manage a small laugh. 'His name is Puff.'
'That's good, Emily. Just hold on. What other toys does she like?' I know what he's trying to do, but not even those thoughts are enough to keep out the darkness that's eating away at my vision. I try to hold on for the team. I try for my daughter. I try for Lee. For Jordan, even if she'll never really know just how much she means to me. There are so many things that I need to say, but I just can't say them. I'm beyond talking, beyond praying.
'I'm sorry…' are the last words I can manage before the darkness takes me over completely.
The sirens blare in his ear, and the speed limit seems a mere suggestion. Morgan keeps the phone pressed at his ear, just in case Emily says anything more, but it doesn't seem likely; there's been silence on the line for a while now. Too long.
He's got the Kevlar strapped on, the address punched into the GPS, and an itchy trigger finger. It's almost a good thing that Hotch is driving, because he's pretty sure he'd have crashed the car by now, which is the last thing they need. The paramedics are following pretty closely, because from what they know, there's a snowball's chance in hell that there aren't going to be injuries.
They don't know the detailed nature of the situation – the fact that Emily had managed to get to a phone suggests that she'd somehow escaped, but that doesn't mean that the threat is gone. She hadn't exactly been in any shape to further explain the situation.
He gives a sideways glance to Hotch, whose expression is a stoic grimace. Unsurprising.
They've lost too much already. They can't lose Emily too.
The silence is overwhelming. He imagines the situation to be much the same in the other SUV. Not even Reid will dare to make a comment about statistical significance at a time like this.
He's ridiculously grateful when they finally reach the house, even if his heart is thumping a thousand times a minute, and his finger feels as thought it might shoot anything that moves.
Maybe this is what Hotch means when he says that Morgan's too restless. He reads those yearly reports that say he sometimes goes into situations half-cocked, and he thinks that Hotch is over-exaggerating a little, but in this moment, he understands.
Even still, when he kicks the door in, it's with enough force to knock down a sumo wrestler, and when he steps inside, all he can feel is the deadly silence, hanging in the air. Sometimes…sometimes you can just tell when there's no-one left alive, without even having seen the bodies. Morgan's got that feeling now, and it terrifies the crap out of him.
He steps into the kitchen, and his heart skips a beat. One moment, it's thudding away like a jackhammer, and then, there's just…nothing. It comes back round again, even faster than before, and if he wasn't so focused on the situation, he might have found himself fearing a heart attack.
'In here!' he called out, dropping to his knees beside Emily. He's kind of vaguely aware of their unsub, lying dead on the blood beside them, but that's really not important right now. Emily's eyes are closed, and there's blood staining her clothes – a lot of blood – and she looks like she's been to hell and back, but he can just see the slow rise and fall of her chest – breathing that won't be there very much longer if the paramedics don't get here soon.
He manages to tear himself away as they arrive, but his eyes remained glued to the scene, unable to move. The whole team has been through so much, it seems like the universe is out to get them. Reid would probably say that it's something to do with the nature of the job, and the prevalence of violence, but Morgan thinks that after all they've done, fate needs to cut them some slack.
Right now, that just doesn't seem likely.
