Author's Note: I'm back. Finally. Been a bit sick'ish, allergies, yada yada . . . on with the show.

And as to whether it's now M, it is. I do so hate indecisiveness in all its incarnations, so I said to myself, 'just make a damn decision already jackass!' And there we were, rating upgraded! :) I still stand by my assessment of this M tale being overall somewhat "milder" than my previous Ms, but I guess it's all a sliding scale of disturbing crap. And this particular chapter ranks its disturbing crap based on imagery and language.

And FYI, the beginning here is going to upset you. Know that. So scrunch your little faces up, and then please, keep reading :)

Continuing from Emily screaming like a banshee.

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Ungodly Acts

Emily was still screaming as she stumbled backwards away from Hotch's dangling body.

DEAR CHRIST! WHAT THE FUCK DID THAT MONSTER DO TO HIM!

The words were as much a scream in her mind as the sound that was coming from her larynx. And though she was on the verge of a full blown crack up . . . it was impossible to look at that abomination and not feel her sanity slip . . . the little part of Emily's brain still functioning rationally, knew that she needed to get her shit together.

Now.

And so her hand came flying up to cut off the terrified shriek that was echoing through the tunnels. Her screams had been giving away not only her position, but also her state of being.

One of abject terror.

And though her hand was shaking violently . . . her whole body was shaking violently . . . Emily bit down hard on her fist, hard enough to draw blood, as she tried desperately to dig down into her dwindling reserves of strength.

'GET IT TOGETHER PRENTISS!' She screamed in her head, 'WE HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS SHIT! HOTCH NEEDS YOU!'

Right, right . . . Emily repeated over and over to herself as the coppery taste filled her mouth . . . Hotch needed her. Hotch needed her. He needed her, so she needed to get it together. Otherwise she was letting him down.

Again.

With that final thought . . . one of self-loathing . . . Emily's arm fell down to hang limply at her side. A moment later her fingers tightened around the flashlight as she sucked in a ragged breath. And then she sucked in another breath as she forced herself to step forward again. And with her eyes burning and her stomach churning in revulsion, she raised the light up once more.

Raised it up to focus on the deformity that was once her boss' handsome face.

He was completely disfigured.

"Oh Hotch," she murmured as a tear spilled down her cheek, "I'm so sorry."

For a moment her red rimmed gaze dropped back to the dirt beneath them. Her body was being flooded with feelings of guilt and remorse for arriving too late to stop this terrible thing from happening. But she knew that neither guilt nor remorse would do anything to help them in that moment.

Those feelings were for later.

For always.

So Emily bit down hard on her lip as she dragged her eyes back up . . . careful not to look at Hotch's bloody face . . . to focus her brain on the one thing that would help them in that moment.

Figuring out how she was going to cut him down.

Because that needed to be done . . . and they needed to be LONG gone . . . before the UNSUB came back and finished his slice and dice of not only Hotch's body, but hers as well.

But unfortunately she couldn't make herself concentrate on how to get Hotch down without ripping his arms from his sockets. Instead her watery gaze persisted in sliding back to his ruined face. Even in the shadowy light . . . she was purposely keeping the beam focused on his arms instead . . . it was like trying to look away from a train wreck.

You couldn't.

So she finally gave in and just stared at the lumpy, bloody, shadowy, pulverized mess.

The tears were now running freely down her face. The guilt had become a physical weight pressing on her chest. Because when Hotch woke up . . . if Hotch woke up . . . she didn't how the hell she was going to tell him what had happened.

There were no words.

And as Emily shifted her flashlight arm to wipe the back of her hand across her face . . . her nose had started running too . . . suddenly the beam of light caught on something. Something that made her eyes pop.

It was a piece of skin with a ragged edge. That alone wasn't so shocking . . . his whole face was a ragged edge . . . but this edge appeared to have just slipped down his cheek.

Almost like it didn't belong there.

Feeling a fresh jolt of adrenaline surge into her completely overwrought system . . . it would be a miracle if she didn't have a heart attack . . . Emily tentatively reached out to touch the slippery edge.

As her finger made contact with the bloody flesh, she winced. It was slick and warm and she wanted so desperately to yank her hand away. But she knew that there was no time to dick around. There was no time for anything anymore.

Eventually the UNSUB was going to come back. And he was going to come back with a sharp knife.

And maybe a sewing kit.

And though Emily was in part terrified that she was about to quite literally, tear Hotch's face off, another part of her brain was forming a theory. It was a sickening, soul deadening theory, but still one that she was praying to God was true.

Hell, she was praying to ANY god that would LISTEN, that it was true!

So with all of those, 'please God, please, please, pleases' running desperately through her brain, Emily tentatively slid her finger under the ragged flap. Her upper teeth dug into her lower lip as she felt the flesh slide just a little more.

The moment was beyond horrible.

But still Emily blinked through the fresh tears in her eyes, and tried to ignore the bile churning in her stomach, as she made herself focus in on the overall structure of Hotch's face.

On what exactly she was seeing.

On what exactly she was revealing.

And though she was filled with fear and revulsion, as her vision narrowed slightly, Emily saw just enough beneath that flap to take a leap. It was a leap of faith. A leap . . . a belief . . . that in this one moment, her prayers to the gods wouldn't go unheeded.

That maybe somebody up there would notice . . . they deserved a win.

And with that, Emily set her jaw and curled her fingers under the slippery edge . . . and then she snatched the bloodied layers of dermis from Hotch's face.

It came away with a sucking sound. Kind of like pulling a boot out that was stuck in the mud.

She nearly threw up.

But somehow she managed . . . by sheer continuing will . . . to push away that sensation. And with the drippy piece of flesh and fat dangling between the thumb and index finger of her pistol hand, Emily again speared the light onto Hotch's face. Though she was trying to prepare herself for the absolute worst outcome . . . a skinned carcass . . . what she saw instead filled her with joy.

IT WAS HIM!

It was Hotch! He HADN'T been carved up! It had just been a mask . . . her thoughts stuttered as her eyes dropped down to the glob in her hand. . . one made out of human skin and chunks of fatty tissue.

Oh Christ!

Emily's delicate stomach suddenly flipped again. She'd just realized what she was holding in her fingers.

Somebody's face.

JESUS!

For a moment her eyes snapped shut. She was attempting to lock the image away . . . to lock it out.

It was just too much of a mind fuck to try and process.

And when her eyes opened again a second later, her lips curled into a grimace of disgust as she flung the piece of bloody tissue ahead into the darkness of the tunnel.

She tossed it away like garbage.

Though some part of her knew that was a terrible thing to do . . . that was a person's identity, literally his face for the world, and she'd flung it away like a piece of snot on her finger . . . at that moment she couldn't find it in her to care. All she cared about was Hotch.

Taking care of him.

And she wasn't going to be able to do that if she lost her fucking mind over the human face mask she'd been holding in her hand. But with that now gone into the darkness, she reached up to touch Hotch's blood smeared face. And again she was overjoyed to see that he was okay. Or not so much 'okay' as unconscious and strung up like a side of beef in a butcher's shop, but still . . . she sniffled as her hand slid along his jaw and hairline feeling for imperfections . . . at least his face hadn't been sliced up.

There was probably some bruising, and maybe some minor cuts, but most of the blood . . . her eyes momentarily snapped down to his splattered t-shirt . . . it had to have belonged to the other victim.

The one whose face was carved off and still dripping when it was slapped on top of Hotch's.

Feeling a shudder run through her body at that image, she tried to shake it from her mind. That would do nothing for her composure. Especially knowing that that nightmarish action had been done SOLELY to fuck with her. There was no other purpose.

There couldn't have been.

Hotch was unconscious, so the act was lost completely on him. Perhaps if he'd woken up it might have been a nice . . . Emily scowled . . . 'bonus' for the UNSUB.

Something to send him over the edge.

But really, that other man had died . . . probably skinned alive . . . just to make HER scream.

It was an act of evil. But of course this was an evil place . . . her mouth twisted in another grimace as her hand fell away from Hotch's cheek . . . run by an evil thing. A thing that had ripped off another man's face, simply for fun.

Evil was the only word for it.

And that image . . . that sensation of holding that warm flesh in her fingers . . . was one that was going to stay with her until the day that she died. But she knew that if she didn't get her ass in gear . . . Emily shook her head to refocus . . . then the day that she died . . . she spun around . . . might very well be today.

So after a frantic rush to check the tunnel in front and behind them . . . she didn't want to move far from Hotch so she could only see about ten feet in either direction, but it was better than nothing . . . Emily began moving on the plan that she'd been attempting to cobble together a few minutes before.

That would be the plan where she cut Hotch down from the rafters without dislocating any of his limbs.

It wasn't a perfect plan . . . if she wasn't personally screaming in agony before it was done that would be a miracle . . . but it was really the only plan that she could work out given the limitations at that moment.

There were no other options.

So after hurriedly tucking the flashlight between her shoulder and chin, she yanked the hunting knife out from the flap of the brown leather satchel.

It was hard to believe that she'd only shoved it in there maybe forty or forty-five minutes ago. But of course it had only taken Alice a second to trip and fall down her rabbit hole too.

And she'd nearly got her head taken off.

Emily rolled her eyes . . . and that was yet another unhelpful image to add to the collection. And as she shoved it into the little box where she'd put the others . . . her boxes came in handy for so many things . . . Emily tucked the knife under her arm for a moment so she could adjust her hold on the flashlight.

Given the humidity, it was hard to keep a decent grip.

Everything was slippery.

But after she got the black metal semi-secure again . . . and following another anxious check of the tunnels . . . she reluctantly jammed her pistol into her holster.

This was the worst part . . . the part where she had no weapon out to defend them. But she was just going to have to move quickly before something snuck up out of the dark.

And with that, she yanked the knife out from under her arm. And as the sheath was falling to the ground, she was jumping up to slice through the loop of old rope tied to the rotting beam above Hotch's right shoulder.

Her jump was high, and the blade landed dead on.

The knife went through like butter.

But as expected . . . Hotch's body immediately slipped. And Emily hurried to lean up and catch the weight before one of his muscles tore.

This was part of the plan where she expected to start screaming.

Because though she aimed to catch him on her good shoulder, the pain Emily felt as she strained up on her calves was horrific. Even if her plan was the one that caused the least amount of serious damage to Hotch's body . . . she couldn't say it was the one that would do the same for her own.

And when his weight suddenly shifted further . . . and he fell against her, Emily choked down a whimper.

Fresh tears were beginning to pool in her eyes.

Her battered body was not up for this. She'd taken too many hits. But she had no time to stop and regroup . . . they couldn't have been more vulnerable at the moment . . . so she pushed on through the throbbing stabs in her back and her side. And with her jaw set, and the first of the agony filled tears sliding down her cheek, she wrapped one arm around Hotch's waist and pushed up as far as she could on her tiptoes to slice through the other binding.

This one was not a clean cut.

Given her angle . . . and that of the light . . . the work she was doing was mostly in shadow. But fortunately the knife was razor sharp, and the rope she was cutting was old . . . quite probably used on many victims before Hotch . . . so even with the awkwardness of her movements, the blade was able to make relatively quick work of the second restraint.

But unfortunately the moment that the other rope snapped . . . and Hotch's full weight dropped onto hers . . . Emily's legs crumpled beneath her.

She was just too weak to hold them both up.

They fell to the ground in a heap . . . her exhaling a sharp gasp of pain as she landed on her back. Hotch's body was lying prostrate on top of hers.

His still bloodied face was half buried in her cleavage.

Under other circumstances . . . ANY, other circumstances really . . . the position that they'd landed in would appear sexual in nature. But not down there in that darkness, with both of them splattered in gore. Down there it was just a grotesque tableau. A twisted snapshot.

The Lovers in Hell.

Something Dante would have painted.

And it wasn't until after she'd caught the breath that had been knocked out of her, that Emily realized that the knife had slipped from her hand in the fall.

After that she was just thanking God that she hadn't landed on top of it.

Not to say that she wasn't in serious agony. Her bad arm had gotten pinned under Hotch's forearm, and she had to bite back a sob as she pulled it out. And as she lay there again gasping for air, though it felt like every pain sensor she had was screaming, Emily was fairly certain that she hadn't actually broken anything when they fell.

Small miracle there.

Another small miracle . . . her watery eyes bounced around the tunnel . . . was when she saw that the flashlight hadn't bounced away when they hit the ground either. It had slipped down from her neck, but fortunately it had then caught under Hotch's other outstretched arm.

The beam was shining crookedly down from the ceiling, throwing their section of the tunnel in a mix of creepy light and shadows.

But at least she could still make out the general details of the area around them.

It was far better than the blackness that she could see ahead and behind.

And though Emily knew that she needed to get off the crunchy, moving ground . . . God damn millipedes again . . . and start dragging Hotch out before something came out of that blackness, instead she just lay there gasping and crying. The tears were only partly born of the terrible pain . . . the rest was stress.

But either way she couldn't make them stop.

And now that she was down . . . not just down, but being held down by the dead weight that was her unconscious boss . . . her body was starting to give up the ghost. The one thing that had been keeping her going . . . finding Hotch . . . was now lost to her. She'd found him. And he was alive.

And now she couldn't seem to get her body moving again.

But if she didn't, she knew that they were both going to die down there.

That was a fact.

Emily's bad hand inched up from the dirt and she pressed it against the back of Hotch's head. She could feel the stickiness of the blood in his hair. That crack he'd taken to the skull.

A tiny sob ripped through her chest.

She needed to keep going . . . and she needed to stop moving. Because she knew that if she didn't rest soon, then she was simply going to pass out. And then . . . again . . . they were both going to die.

That was also a fact.

And therein lay the problem.

If she didn't get up then they were going to die. If she didn't rest then they were going to die.

Even Sophie didn't have choices like this.

But even if she could somehow push through the pain and physical exhaustion to climb to her feet, Emily didn't know how the hell she was going to find the strength to drag Hotch a half mile out from what felt like the center of the earth. Because in that moment she could barely even envision dragging herself up to her knees.

Hell, she'd started SOBBING just twisting to move his ARM off of hers! So how the FUCK . . . she felt a surge of impotent rage . . . was she going to actually drag them back to the surface?

She couldn't even get up off the fucking GROUND!

Feeling a wave of sheer physical exhaustion suddenly wash over her . . . the rage took too much effort to maintain . . . a fresh batch of hot tears started running down Emily's face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered tearfully as she stroked Hotch's hair, "I'm so sorry that I'm letting you down. But sir," she sniffled as she slid her fingers under Hotch's side so she could reach her gun, "I need you to wake up now. Please. Because I don't think that I can do the rest of it by myself. It's a long walk back out to the world," she sniffled again while sliding the pistol out from her holster, "and I need your help or we're not going to make it."

Emily didn't really expect that her words would reach Hotch down wherever his subconscious was hiding . . . if he hadn't woken up when they fell to the ground, she had figured that she was on her own at least until they reached the surface again . . . so she was honestly shocked when suddenly she felt him start to stir.

Maybe she should have been talking to him from the beginning.

"Hotch," she whispered breathlessly as her fingers stilled in his hair, "Hotch, are you awake?"

Please God! PLEASE!

It took another few seconds, but then she heard . . . and felt . . . the faint murmur as his lips moving against her breast.

"Prentiss?"

"Yeah," another tiny sob ripped from her chest, "it's me! I'm here," she tried a painful shift to elevate his body slightly, "I found you. And you're awake," she impulsively leaned down to the kiss the top of his head, "thank God you're awake! I was so worried. And I didn't know how the hell I was going to get you out of here."

Hotch blinked twice as he slowly lifted his head from Emily's chest until he could see her face in the shimmery pool of light falling around them.

"What happened?" He murmured in confusion. "How did we end up on the ground?"

As soon as the question left his lips, he felt something run over the fingers of his left hand . . . something that had hundreds of tiny little feet . . . and that's when he consciously processed the shifting darkness and the claustrophobic walls pressing on either side. He realized then that they were underground. The fog covering his brain was knocked out by one horrible phrase.

THE MINE SHAFT!

And before Emily could respond, suddenly it had all flashed through his mind like a wave of slamming into the beach:

. . . the decapitated heads

. . . the accident

. . . the abduction

. . . the attack

And now . . . he sucked in a breath . . . they were down in the tunnels.

'Oh Christ,' he thought with a wave of panic as he moved to push his body off of Emily's, 'they needed to get OUT of there!'

Though his physical plans were clear in Hotch's mind, to his astonishment his limbs did not cooperate with the signals he was sending down from his brain. He ended up just flopping back down on Emily's breast.

What the . . . ?

That's when . . . to his growing horror . . . he realized that he had no strength in his arms. None. In fact all that he could feel in his upper quadrants was an agonizing burning sensation . . . but he didn't know why.

Though his early memory seemed to be intact . . . and his thoughts were falling in line with what Emily was whispering to him . . . he couldn't remember anything after getting cold cocked by the tunnel entrance.

But he was starting to believe . . . from the searing pain in his arms and shoulders, and the tears running down Emily's face as she stopped talking to reach down and touch his cheek . . . that his ignorance might just be for the best. Because whatever had happened to him was obviously very bad.

And there are some memories that you just don't need to keep.

". . . and then I had to cut you down from the beams of the shaft," Emily continued with a sniffle as she reached out to try . . . unsuccessfully . . . to wipe away the gruesome clots of blood drying on Hotch's skin, "and I fell when I caught you."

She needed to find something to wipe his face. The blood had dried enough to become tacky, and it was just clumping wherever she tried to wipe it away.

It looked like, well . . . her stomach turned as it had earlier . . . she just needed to get that cleaned up or she was going to lose what was left of her minimal personal composure.

He looked like Carrie's date to the prom.

"Prentiss," Hotch asked slowly as his fingers grappled for her wrist, "what's wrong with my face?"

His skin felt strange . . . wrong. But given the pain emanating from so much of the rest of his body . . . the numbness was giving away to stabbing pins and needles . . . at first he hadn't thought much of that wrongness.

It was a secondary concern.

But given how Emily was looking at him . . . and touching him . . . he was starting to think that whatever had happened to his face, was far worse than whatever had happened to the rest of him.

And that was bringing a fresh tickle of fear to his already overloaded nervous system.

"Um," Emily bit her lip as her hand stilled in his, "when I found you, there was a . . . you were um, wearing a mask. It was uh," she swallowed as her chest started to ache again with the memory, "it was made out of skin and tissue . . . it was another man's face."

Seeing Hotch's eyes widening in horror while his fingertips dug painfully into her flesh, Emily bit her lip.

"I screamed," her voice caught as she flashed on it again, "and I'm sorry for that, but it was so terrible, just so terrible. And at first I didn't know what he'd done to you."

It was horrible, grotesque . . . an abomination. But still . . . she reminded herself . . . it could have been worse. Somebody else could have been wearing Hotch's face, instead of the other way around.

And that . . . she swallowed . . . well, she didn't know how she would have been able to deal with that.

Hotch stared up at Emily with an unblinking horror. Though he had been exposed to more of life's evils than most people ever would, it was still nearly impossible to wrap his brain around what she had just said to him.

Another man's face . . . on top of his.

He swallowed hard . . . and then he did it again. And by the third time he was able to speak again.

"So my face is . . ."

"Covered in gore," Emily gave a clipped nod as she hurriedly finished his thought, "yes, and it's drying and it's . . . well, we need to clean it off. And then," she wiped the back of her hand across her own face, trying to stop the tears, "we need to get the hell out of here before he comes back."

Again, too much time was passing. It had probably been close to three or four minutes since she'd pulled Hotch down, and now that he was awake . . . and this wasn't all on her alone anymore . . . she knew that they needed to start working on a plan to at the very least, get up off the ground. Because Daddy UNSUB would be circling back around for them eventually.

As it was he was probably off laying traps or cleaning his knives or God knew what.

And she would prefer that God kept all of that knowledge to himself.

"Right," Hotch nodded somewhat mechanically as he tried to mentally disengage from the horrific images in his mind . . . the images of having another man's skin ripped off, and then layered on top of his.

It was enough to drive him mad.

He was just thanking God that he was unconscious for that part. The sensation alone would have been enough to drive him around the bend. Because if the skin was still bloody when it was put on, then that meant that it was fresh.

And it would have been warm.

OH JESUS!

Feeling an uncontrollable shudder rip through his body, Hotch tried desperately to yank his work armor back in place.

It didn't work.

He just kept imagining what that moment would have been like. That moment when he awoke. And how long it would have taken him to realize what was on his face.

Minutes? Hours?

Would it have dried on there? Gotten STUCK to him?

FUCK!

"Hotch."

Though Emily's voice was just a whisper, Hotch still jumped as his startled gaze snapped up to hers. Then she surprised him with a sad smile.

"It's gone," she continued softly, "I threw it away, and you're okay now. So just put it out of your head. You're okay. I promise."

Hotch blinked in astonishment . . . how did she know exactly what he was thinking? And then he realized that didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was right, he needed to put it out of his head.

Because if he didn't . . . his fingers slid down to squeeze Emily's hand . . . then having a stranger's vivisected epidermal layer dropped on to his, would be the least of his . . . their . . . problems that night.

Next time they could be the ones getting vivisected.

"Right," he bit down on the inside of his cheek, "sorry. And I do have a rag in my pocket, the strips from my shirt that we were going to use as bandages. I can wipe it off with that. So," he grimaced in pain as he braced his other arm on the dirt floor, "let's see if my muscles are working a little better now, so that we can get up and get out of here."

Though it should have felt strange to have been lying on top of a woman in such a traditionally intimate position . . . it really didn't. When push came to shove, any thoughts of sexual intimacy . . . or propriety . . . were the first things to get tossed out the window. Those were societal mores.

Things that didn't apply in this netherworld of blood and torture.

So with Emily helping to lever him up with her good arm . . . the one holding her pistol . . . he was able to slowly . . . with a brutal stabbing in his triceps . . . push himself back to his knees.

And though he was still straddling Emily's thighs, it was at least progress towards getting off the ground.

And off of her.

"How badly are you hurt?" He asked on a ragged pant while brushing away the insects crawling across her chest and shoulders.

At that moment he was taking slow, even breaths to try and push the pain from the forefront of his mind. It was the complete Mind Over Matter approach that worked in most aspects of his life. His will was fairly unbendable when his mind was set.

But unfortunately in this instance . . . at this moment . . . the pain seemed to be even greater than his will.

Everything hurt.

But even with his new injuries compounding his old ones . . . two blows to his head had resulted in a pounding headache . . . he knew that Emily was still in worse shape than he was. Her wounded arm was covered in blood, both fresh and dried, her nose was scraped, and her face . . . which was marked with bruises from the earlier attack . . . was now etched in pain.

He was honestly amazed that she was still conscious.

And seeing her staring up at him with a faint panic in her eyes . . . she hadn't answered his question . . . his expression softened slightly as his hand fell to her side.

"Can you stand up?" He whispered.

Emily's gaze fell down to the crimson splatters on Hotch's t-shirt.

"No," she murmured softly, "no, I don't think so. Not right now."

Though she knew that it wasn't really her fault . . . there were certain physical limitations that even the strongest person couldn't overcome . . . it was still so embarrassing. Rescuing someone and then having to ask that person for help just getting up off the ground again.

That wasn't in any of the damn fairy tales!

"Okay," he patted her hip comfortingly, "it's okay. Don't worry about it. I don't even know if I can get up yet, and you've had a hell of a lot worse day than me," he shook his head, "but one thing at a time. You just rest for a minute, but keep that gun handy. And in the meanwhile," he jammed his other hand into his pants pocket as his tone hardened, "I'll try and get this crap off my face."

Trying to ignore the visuals that were popping into his head . . . he knew from the look on Emily's face that he was a fright . . . Hotch yanked out a couple of the strips he'd ripped up earlier to bandage Emily's arm. That task still needed to be done at some point. But as he hurriedly wiped the still damp cloth over his face, scrubbing the hardest where Emily pointed, he knew that they didn't have time for full urgent care right now anyway.

Right now was just emergency triage.

Once they got back outside again . . . he looked down at Emily now staring up at him . . . he'd take care of her arm with whatever the hell was left of his shirt.

"Better?" he whispered as he turned his head slightly towards the pool of light. And Emily nodded hurriedly, "yeah, much better. Just get that bit under your jaw there. It's still um . . . um . . ."

Hotch didn't wait for her to finish the descriptive thought . . . he was afraid the word was going to be 'gooey' and that uncontrollable shudder would come back again.

"Got it," he said while doing another frantic scrub under his jawline. Then he used just his wrist to whip the filthy strips to the side of the tunnel.

His upper body was continuing to cause him considerable pain . . . the blood flow was still working its way around the muscles . . . but there was nothing to be done about that. He now had at least some movement and strength back.

So that meant that it was time to try and get up.

And with a grit of his teeth, he slowly pushed himself up to his haunches . . . and then to his feet. And though he felt a little dizzy, and the exertion was great . . . he still had the bullet wound in his calf . . . the pain he experienced wasn't bad enough to knock him back down to his knees. But that was because most of the muscles he'd relied on had been in his thighs.

And that was about the only part of his body that was still in decent physical condition.

Still though, he gave himself a moment to catch his ragged breath before he looked back down to Emily.

Her eyes were wide, but she had pushed herself up to her elbows.

He had a feeling that was as far as she could go.

So he bent over slightly, reaching down with one hand outstretched as he gave her a little smile.

"Okay," he murmured, "this is going to hurt. So let's both of us try not to scream, deal?"

And he saw Emily nod as her fingers slid into his.

"Deal." She whispered back.

And then Hotch bit down on his lip . . . and yanked as hard as he could.

Though ordinarily he knew that pulling her up would require no exertion at all . . . this was not an ordinary situation. And rather than her coming straight up to her feet, the pull was slow . . . and the resulting pain was excruciating.

For both of them.

Even as his eyes burned with the effort of lifting her, Hotch could see fresh tears running down Emily's already dirty and tear streaked face.

He felt a stab of guilt that he was hurting her.

And then suddenly she was on her feet.

They both stood there, gasping . . . her bent slightly and biting the back of her hand . . . as they tried to adjust to this new normality. The one where their previously healthy, muscular bodies, had been aged a hundred years in an hour. He was feeling every one of his forty plus years on the planet.

And how she had ever managed to find him in her condition, was nothing short of a miracle.

At least he . . . Hotch thought bitterly as she tried to straighten up . . . had had a little break in the festivities. He'd been dragged down into the bowels of hell.

She'd most likely run the entire way.

And that was with a head injury, a chunk of her scalp missing, and . . . he winced in sympathy as he saw her trying to wipe away the tears running down her face . . . a bullet wound in her shoulder. All of that blood loss, plus nearly being torn in two during the fight to keep her from being dragged off into the woods. And as that thought came to him . . . how, even in the condition that she was in, how badly she was hurt, that she had risked her own life to come save him . . . Hotch impulsively reached out to put his hand on her uninjured shoulder.

When her pain filled eyes snapped up to his, his expression warmed as he tugged her against his chest. He was trying to be careful to avoid touching her bad side.

"Thank you for coming to find me," he whispered against her hair, "I won't be able to repay that debt."

"Sure you can," Emily sniffled into one of the few relatively clean spots of Hotch's t-shirt, "if you can just get us back to the surface, then we'll call it even."

Unless she somehow found an Energizer battery to tape to her ass, then she was going to be hanging on him the whole way up.

Hotch patted Emily's back.

"Okay, deal. Now then," he leaned back slightly to look down at her, "can you get those Tic Tacs out of your bra? We're going to need the sugar."

It wasn't much sugar, but given how heavily she was leaning against him, she wasn't going to be able to go ten feet if he didn't get some little jolt into her system.

"Oh," Emily took a half step back and began fumbling to get her hand into her shirt, "right."

As she slid her fingers into her bra, Hotch reached down to snatch the flashlight from the ground. Once he was back to his feet . . . it was a slightly unsteady movement . . . he turned to swing the beam behind him.

As the creepy mixture of light and dusty shadow suddenly disappeared, Emily felt a wave of terror as she was plunged into complete darkness.

"Hotch," she hissed in a panic as her fingertips clenched painfully into her breast. But then she felt Hotch immediately slip his arm around her waist.

"Sorry," Hotch whispered as he tugged Emily closer while still running the light overhead, and then down the section of the shaft that was behind her, "I'm just trying to get my bearings."

'And make sure nobody's creeping up behind us,' he added to himself.

"Right," Emily murmured as she slipped the tiny plastic box out from her bra cup, "I know, but you just caught me off guard with the darkness plunging and all."

It wasn't the same having the light shift around when you weren't the one controlling it.

Hotch winced at the gentle reproach . . . she was right. Plunging somebody into darkness down here, was not a nice thing to do.

It was actually a really shitty thing to do.

"Won't happen again," he murmured as he again fixed the light beam to bounce off the ceiling above them. "I promise," he added as his gaze snapped down to lock with hers.

"Thanks," Emily gave him a pained smile as she held up the little box of mints, "I appreciate that. And given that neither of us has a third hand," she could ask him to let go of her but that wasn't happening, "open up, sir."

Hotch stooped down slightly and opened his mouth, and Emily poured in a shake of the tiny green mints. Then she did the same for herself before snapping the cover shut again and shoving the little box into her pocket.

Chewing that many mints at once caused a slight burning sensation on her tongue, but more importantly it triggered not only her appetite . . . but her salivary response again.

But then she started to cough as a speck of mint caught in throat.

Shit.

As she was doing her mightiest to regain control of her cough reflex before the sound bounced back out to wake the dead, she felt Hotch's hand slide up from where it was resting at the small of her back. And then he was gently smacking her between the shoulder blades.

"You okay?" he whispered just as she got her throat to clear without another coughing bout.

"Yeah," she murmured while swallowing again, "thanks."

Can't even be the cool kid two miles beneath the earth.

"All right then," Hotch continued softly while slipping one of the rifles off of her shoulder, "it's time to get moving."

At least Emily had thought to grab the rifles before she came after him, but what he wouldn't have given for a handgun of any shape or size. But he'd lost his primary weapon up on the surface, and his backup piece . . . the Glock . . . he could tell from the lack of weight by his ankle, that one was long gone too.

And that was very nice that he was able to provide the UNSUB not one, but TWO additional methods by which to take not only his life, but Emily's as well.

The thought came with a wave of bitter disgust, but he tried to push it back. An emotion like that wasn't going to do anything but distract him from the matter at hand.

Getting out of there with both of their heads still attached to their unskinned bodies.

Emily let the strap of the rifle slip off of her wrist, and then using Hotch's belt for stability . . . she slowly crouched down to pick up the hunting knife from where it had fallen by the tunnel wall.

Fortunately the flashlight beam was glinting on the shiny metal.

As she tried to come back to her feet, she felt Hotch's arm slide around her waist again.

"You don't have the energy for extra movements Prentiss," Hotch gently chastised, "you should have just told me about the knife and I would have gotten it."

Emily gave him a sheepish . . . tired . . . smile.

"Habit. Now," she held it out, "do you want to carry it, or," she shook her head, "you know what," she held her gun out, "you should take this. You're going to be taking point, so you should have the best weapon."

It was a little strange handing off her pistol to anyone, especially in a situation like this. But she had to consider what was practical. And practically speaking . . . until she could stand completely upright without any assistance from the man in front of her . . . she seemed to have pulled a muscle in her back . . . Hotch was clearly the more physically fit of the two of them.

His reflexes would be faster than hers.

"If you're sure," Hotch tipped his head as he slipped the sig from her hand, "thank you."

"Yeah," Emily nodded as she hoisted the weight of the razor sharp knife more firmly into her hand, "it's only logical. And actually, I don't mind the knife," her lip curved in faint smile, "my dad made me start practicing with them when I was a kid. My throwing aim isn't quite as good as my shooting aim, but based on my last workout with my dad, I can still hit what I'm aiming at dead center nine times out of ten."

Her shooting was ten out of ten. But of course she practiced more often with the guns than the knives.

Hotch's eyebrow rose up appreciatively.

"That's very good to know Prentiss," then he huffed humorlessly as he slipped his flashlight arm around her waist, "and I think I'd like to meet your father someday."

Though Hotch knew that the ambassador was one formidable woman, he was getting the impression that Emily's father probably had a greater influence on her development than her mother had. The woman beside him was a lethal and tenacious fighter, capable of easily taking down opponents twice her size.

The man that had raised her had done a hell of a job.

"Sure," Emily's mouth curved faintly as Hotch gave her a tight squeeze, "I think that could be arranged."

The two of them would probably get along quite well. After all they were the two toughest men that she'd ever met.

She had no idea who would win in a physical match.

"Okay," Hotch squinted slightly as he turned them to shine the light back and forth in the darkness, "which way is out?"

Given that he was unconscious for the trip down, getting out was going to be all Emily.

"That way," Emily pointed back the way that she'd come, "it's about six or seven minutes back to the main tunnel, but fair warning," her expression tightened as she looked up at him, "there was a . . . a sculpture. A person and uh, dog, and well," she shook her head, "it's very upsetting."

Upsetting, scream inducing . . . potato, potatoe.

Hotch's jaw twitched.

"Got it."

And with that he pulled her more tightly against his side. Ordinarily of course that wasn't how they moved about, on duty or off. But right now they were neither . . . they were in a limbo state just trying to stay alive . . . and it was clear that completely left to her own devices, Emily would be trailing five or six paces behind him. But they needed to stick tightly together. It was the only way that they were going to make it out. At that moment Milton's words were ringing in his mind.

"Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."

'Well here's to hoping that old Johnny's right about the light,' Hotch thought bitterly. And with that, he began moving them forward up the sloped path.

The insects were scrambling everywhere the light hit. And Emily was leaning slightly against him . . . but not too heavily. He knew that would be a source of pride for her.

That she was able to keep moving under her own power. So he was just keeping her moving a little faster, that's all.

And they were doing well for the first few minutes, but then he felt Emily's steps drag slightly as her fingertips dug into his side.

"It's not far now," she murmured as Hotch slowed his pace right before nodding as he bit out a quiet . . . and clipped, "right."

He had no more desire to suddenly stumble over one of those 'sculptures' than she did. The one by the side of the road had knocked his composure completely out of whack. So he kept his eyes peeled for the corpse that he now knew was just ahead of them.

Just as his light flashed over a grotesque outline . . . one that made his head hurt to process . . . there was a sound from behind them.

It was like a whimper.

Hotch's heart was again pounding as they spun around, his arm clenching like a vise around Emily as they turned.

They weren't going to get separated again.

But he could feel the quiver of the adrenaline pumping through her body as he swung the light back and forth trying to see where the noise had come from.

There was nothing.

Or . . . Hotch's eyes widened in horror just as he heard Emily gasp from beside him.

Oh Christ!

The face donor . . . the one that they had presumed would be dead, that he HAD to be dead . . . had just come stumbling out of the blackness. He was very much alive. And very much a creature straight out of the darkest of nightmares. Not only was his skin flayed completely off of his face, but what was left of his mouth and eyes had been sewn up in thick black stitches.

And he was coming right at them.

A/N 2: You see now why we went M? Once faces (or thongs) start coming off, it's time to up the rating. But come now, you didn't REALLY think that I was going to slice up Hotch's pretty face, did you? :) Granted I might have opted to give these few more than a few new scars, but I wouldn't bust his face up so severely that Emily would end up shrieking when she saw him. At least not in this story ;) I did consider the sewn mouth to be an option for him, but I liked the skinned face better. And that's just a disturbing sentence when taken out of context, or even in context. But really, I was picturing Silence of the Lambs (spoilers for decades old movie!) when Hannibal slices off the guard's face to escape. In this instance though, it was more of a hack job than a slice job. And it would be bloody and lumpy and just totally gross and horrible to look at because, not only was it bloody and lumpy and totally gross in principle, but it was also being layered on top of somebody else's bone structure. And Emily first seeing it in the bouncing flashlight beam, would make it all the more disturbing and harder to discern exactly what it was that had happened.

And now it turns out the poor bastard isn't even dead. That sucks.

We hit almost 9000 words here because I kept pushing and pushing this as far out as I could before I hit another break point. Because I REALLY am trying to wrap this thing up. But the 4 week intermission on any postings at all kind of f'd that up a bit. We're getting there though!

And as always, thank you everyone for the feedback! And I THINK (wood being knocked) that I might have worked through that little block I've had lately. My dreams were incredibly vivid and elaborately detailed last night. That's usually a sign that portion of my brain is working as needed again. So I've got some stuff to do, but them I'm going to see if I have anything else ready to go up. I have been poking away on stuff, it's just been messy and awkward to read. When my brain's working right, I can clean it up :)