Lillian Jeffries was five years old. The little girl sat in Penelope's lap in the kitchen and Emily got her to open up a bit, though she was very frightened, confused and sad. She was able to tell them that her parents started feeling sick on Saturday, when they were at her Grammie and Grandpa's house for dinner, like they were almost every Saturday. The next day she played at her grandparent's house so her parents could rest. The next day, when her mommy couldn't get out of bed because she felt so bad, her dad brought her to her grandparent's house, but her grandparents were sick then, too. After that she couldn't tell them any more about the specific timeline. She came home with her daddy, and she tried to take care of her parents. But her mommy wasn't waking up anymore and her daddy wasn't moving much. That morning, her daddy put her in his office, which they guessed was what he called his hidden room, and told her to stay there.
It didn't make sense that he'd put her in there instead of finding someplace else for her to go, except he was probably very feverish by then and likely not thinking clearly, though he fought the virus better than anyone Serena had read about in Dr. Lamont's notes. He'd shown symptoms on Saturday and was still hanging on by Thursday night. It was unheard of. And now Lillian herself, who had been on the same plane as her parents, had been around both her contagious parents and grandparents, was sitting here and not sick at all.
After they got that initial information out of her, Lillian curled up in Garcia's lap and cried some more. She completely shut down. Emily rubbed her back gently and stood.
Emily and Derek followed Spencer and Serena into the living room where they spoke in excited, hushed whispers. Derek and Emily watched the fast exchange between the two of them and tried to keep up.
"It is statistically impossible that we just happened to walk into the one home with someone who appears to be immune," said Spencer.
"Exactly," responded Serena. "Dr. Lamont didn't test the virus on kids. The youngest were homeless teens, about fourteen and fifteen years old. But Caleb got sick."
"It's far more probable that there are more immune kids out there around Lillian's age."
"Something that happened or changed with immunizations in the past three years, since Caleb was five. But there's nothing significant. No new vaccines."
"Maybe it's a combination of factors, something about inoculation for other diseases along with something genetic or environmental, the same thing the father had inside him or was around in the environment that made him able to hang on so long. But it has to be relatively common."
"Right. Because, like you said, Spencer, it's statistically impossible that this was just a random miracle we discovered right at the house we came to."
It didn't appear that Lillian had any other local family, they had no way to reach or reunite the little girl with her family in Alabama, and Alabama was one of the places people were trying to run away from. They had no time to waste deliberating a decision; Lillian was coming with them. They would talk to her more when they were settled and the little girl was feeling more comfortable.
They gathered with the rest of the group around the hidden room and saw Jacob and Adam frantically at work, with Rossi, Jack and Hotch's help.
"We've been listening to the radio. Canada is letting people return to their homes provided they haven't traveled by air recently. We need Canadian IDs, and, because we have no idea what it's going to look like at the other end of our trek, we need passports that look like we're residents of Fairbanks, for when we cross back over the border. We can make those all relatively quickly here with the equipment they have." Jacob explained to the rest of the group.
"Who were these people?" asked Derek.
Adam looked at them and said simply, "For the right price, they helped people disappear. There are cars out in their garage. That was the process. You leave your car on the U.S. side, take the tunnel, and get a car on the Canadian side. We'll take two sets of plates, Canada and Alaska, and make the registration match a couple of our IDs. We'll switch out the plates as we get closer to the Alaskan border."
The team nodded. Whoever these people were, it didn't matter now. However Adam knew them didn't matter either. They needed what that house offered them.
Jacob spoke up. "Hannah sent me an email. Just some numbers in code. They're map coordinates to what looks like a relatively deserted road outside of Fairbanks. I'm guessing she has our transportation figured out, but the Fairbanks Airport is out."
"We probably need to look a little less like refugees in case we're pulled over or questioned in Canada," said JJ as she looked down at the large sweater of Jacob's she was wearing.
She and Emily both glanced at the ceiling above them and then grimaced at the idea of going up there in a room and raiding the closet of a woman who was lying dead in her bed, a woman who was the mother of the little girl sitting in the other room. But they did it. Like everything in the surreal past couple of days, they all were just operating with the single focus of getting someplace cold, remote and absolutely virus-free.
They gorged themselves on the perishables in the refrigerator, they looted the house without letting themselves think about it, loading up on winter gear. And Penelope and Serena took Lillian to her room to help her pack up some of her things. She was scared about coming with them, but there wasn't really another option. Lillian understood now that her parents and grandparents were dead, and she seemed to know that that meant forever. But she was understandably fragile and cried off and on, and she didn't speak much and she never left Penelope's arms as she pointed to some of the things in her room she wanted.
They let Jacob snap their pictures and then took turns showering, packing up their new cars, and resting on the floor or couches in the living room while Jacob and Adam finished their work.
Emily was standing at the bathroom sink, finishing brushing her teeth after her shower, when Derek walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He stood behind her and they stared at each other in the reflection of the mirror above the sink.
"I'm barely holding on," he whispered. "I feel like a kid who's homesick. I want my mom, and our house and our lives back. I want our pictures and our furniture and our backyard. Every time I get a minute to think, all I see are memories of a place that meant so much to me that we probably won't ever go back to, and I never got to make that decision or say goodbye."
Emily blinked back tears and turned to face him. She felt his arms come around her waist and he bent to rest his forehead on her chest. She kissed the top of his head and took a deep breath. "I'm feeling the same way, but every single time I find myself going down that road, I try to stop and remind myself of everything we still have. We have Serena and Caleb and our memories and our lives. We have everyone else out there who feels like family to us. I just keep telling myself we need to reach our destination. Once we're there, there are possibilities. Either someone else is going to figure out a vaccine and cure, and we might get to go home, or Serena's going to figure it out with our help. And if that never happens, we're likely going to be someplace where we won't get sick. And maybe that place can start feeling like home. Maybe a couple years from now we'll be thinking we could never leave Alaska. I don't know, Derek. I really don't. But I do know that if we're together and safe and alive, we're going to find something good, because we always do. That's what I keep reminding myself. That's how I'm not completely falling apart."
Derek lifted his head and nodded at her before pressing his lips against hers. Emily wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, trying to pour all the love and strength in her heart into him. He'd lost his mom and walked away from the possibility of saving his sisters; on a deeper level, he'd lost so much more than she had.
He pulled away from her lips and kissed her forehead. "Thank you, Em. I love you."
"I love you, too. We just need to hang on and get through a few more days. I know once we feel like we're settling someplace, we can heal and move forward. You and I, we've danced with the edge of disaster before and we've only ever become better dancers," she said with a small smile.
Derek managed one of his grins, and it looked genuine. "That's very true," he whispered.
Just before dawn on Friday morning, they were roused awake by Adam and Jacob. "There are people who just entered Mitchell and Helen's property across the road. We saw them on the surveillance screens here. They went right to the barn, people who obviously know about the passageway. We need to go quickly."
They split into two cars that were similar in size to the ones they'd left in the barn on the other side of the border.
Lillian started crying as soon as they got in the car, and she clung to Penelope. Lillian's tears and what had happened to her parents got Caleb's tears flowing again. "Why is this happening to all of us?" he asked.
It was a question that had no good answer. They comforted Caleb with quick pats and hugs and got everyone into vehicles. Jacob and Adam hadn't slept yet, but before they fell asleep in separate cars, they told everyone the cover stories they'd cooked up based on their IDs.
They drove slowly down a dirt road behind the property for ten miles, then cut to the west for another ten miles on a gravel road before finally picking up a paved road. About four hours later, they were able to cut onto Highway 11, just outside of Regina, pleasantly surprised to find the main highway with relatively few cars on it. And in Regina, there didn't seem to be any evidence of the looting they'd seen in towns of its size when they were passing through the United States.
Canada had not been hit with large populations of infected people yet and things seemed to be functioning pretty much like normal, though the absence of cars on the freeway lead them to believe that the people of Canada had respected the order to stay in their homes. They noticed many Canadian Armed Forces trucks driving on the road heading the opposite direction, probably sent to help with border patrol.
About ten miles beyond Regina, they came to a roadblock. Derek and Emily were driving the lead car. Caleb and Lillian were both asleep in the back, sitting on either side of Penelope, and they hoped they'd stay that way.
There weren't many cars in front of them, but they saw one car directed to make a u-turn and go back the way it came. They pulled to a stop when it was their turn. Officers approached both front windows and Derek and Emily rolled them down, letting in the cold air.
"What is your purpose for being on the road?" the police officer at Derek's window asked.
Derek smiled at the officer. "I know we were directed to stay in our homes, but a large group of my family made the trek down to Brandon to surprise my wife's uncle for his 65th birthday party last weekend. We were planning to stay the week, but didn't feel comfortable being so close to the border. It's us and the car behind us, trying to make our way back to our homes in Whitehorse. We took my wife's uncle and some of their family with us. My wife's brother, who also lives in Brandon, is driving the car behind us." Derek shrugged, "It just feels safer up there right now."
The officer raised his eyebrows. "Whitehorse? That's about thirty-six hours from Brandon."
"Well, we took all of last weekend to get there, and were planning to stay the full week and take this weekend to drive home. Plane tickets for a group this large are expensive, so we decided to drive. But when we heard about what was going on in United States, we just thought heading away from the border would be better."
The officer nodded. "May I see the IDs of the adults in the vehicle?" he asked. Then he tilted his head through the window to the officer near Emily, directing him with to investigate the vehicle behind them. Derek's heart was beating wildly as he got his ID out and handed it to the officer, then reached back to collect the IDs of Jacob, Hotch and Penelope, the other adults in the car. The IDs were flawless, with Hotch, Emily and Derek's stating Whitehorse as their residence, while Penelope's and Jacob's said Brandon. There was a similar mix in the car behind them.
"Have any of you entered the continental United States or flown on any commercial airplane in the past ten days?"
"Nope," said Derek calmly.
"Does anyone have any cold symptoms in your vehicle?"
"No, we don't, thankfully," said Emily as she leaned to the side to look at him through the driver's window.
"What is it that you do in Whitehorse?" the officer asked.
Emily gave him a smile, "We board and train horses, officer. Speaking of which, my best friend and her husband came from Anchorage to take care of our horses while we were gone. Is she going to be able to go home, or will she need to bunk down with us?"
The officer took in Emily's innocent looking face and smiled back. "She'll probably be able to get out. That border is still open for Alaska residents at the moment."
"Thank you so much! I'm sure she'll be relieved," said Emily with a winning smile.
The other officer returned to their car. "IDs check out," he said.
The officer near Derek nodded. He reached in the car window and placed a large green sticker in the lower corner on the windshield. "What's that?" asked Derek.
"So we don't slow things up at other roadblocks. You'll be able to pass through. Drive safely and make sure to switch drivers frequently and rest when you need it."
Derek nodded. "Thank you, sir."
The officer nodded at him and waved both vehicles through the road block.
Derek heaved a sigh of relief and Emily reached over to squeeze his hand when they were through. "We're going to make it," she whispered. Then she turned around to smile at the back of the vehicle.
The rest of the drive was long, and thankfully boring and uneventful. A snowstorm on Saturday slowed them down, but they were still making good time. They got gas when necessary and used the restrooms. Everyone was restless, especially Caleb, Lillian and Aurora, but they muddled through. Serena entertained Lillian by telling the little girl to describe something, and then drawing a picture of it for her. She did not drill Lillian on questions about their family or habits that may lead to an explanation about their immunity, not wanting to pressure Lillian until they were settled. The adults talked, but the conversations were typically short; everyone was lost in thought about just making it, and maybe starting to regain some stability in their lives again. They ate the food in the cars and they drove. About twenty miles from the Alaskan border, they pulled off on an empty side road and swapped out the Canadian license plates for Alaska ones. They pulled the stickers from their windshields, hid the Canadian plates along with their IDs in their things, and got their passports ready.
They were waved through the border into Alaska at just before six o'clock in the morning on Monday. They'd be reaching their destination near Fairbanks with time to spare. They pulled the cars over again and Serena and Adam injected them again with the antiviral, wanting to make sure they weren't bringing any illness into Alaska with them.
"If we make it today, we'll have a lot left. It feels selfish," Serena whispered to the group.
Derek placed a hand on her head, "We didn't know we'd make it this far and fast for sure. We'll use what's left to help the people who may want to come back to Barrow and the Anaktuvuk Pass, Serena. It won't go to waste. I know it feels so wrong, I really do understand. But we did the right thing for our safety and sometimes when choices are very limited, the best decisions are going to feel bad. But we have to let that go."
When they reached the coordinates that Hannah had emailed Jacob, there was already a small, army cargo plane landed on the isolated, dirt road, though they were almost two hours early. There was ice on the ground and some snow, but not too much, though the air was frigid. There was a small shack a bit in the distance, and not much else to see at all.
They pulled the cars near the plane and came to a stop. Jacob and Adam got out of the cars, guns ready, and walked around the plane. Jacob found a piece of paper on the back of the small cargo ramp. "Had to run an errand. If you get here before me, load up. - Hannah."
They got out of the vehicles and let Caleb, Aurora and Lillian run around with Henry and Jack. Emily and Derek smiled when they saw Serena joining in, being twelve again. They were so close, and everyone was feeling optimistic.
As the time approached 2:00, they started loading up the plane. Emily watched Derek put Aurora inside the plane, and he asked Caleb and Lillian to stay with her.
Lillian, who had not talked much on their drive, raised her eyes at Penelope and did a little dance.
"Me, too," said JJ, smiling at Lillian.
Penelope grinned and grabbed some toilet paper from the back of one of the cars. "Excuse us, gentlemen, but I think all of us ladies could do with a bathroom break."
Emily grabbed a gun for safety and joined Serena, Lillian, Penelope and JJ. They left the men to load up the plane and made their way to the shack and around behind it.
Caleb and Henry were in the plane with Aurora, but everyone else was making good time, loading up the plane, looking at their watches. Derek was holding one side of an ice chest with Spencer holding the other when he felt a strong tug and was almost pulled off his feet.
He whipped around and found three men, two with guns pointed at their group, and one with a gun pointed at Spencer's head.
"Drop any weapons you have, raise your jackets so we can see your waistband and lift your pants so we can see your ankles."
The group did as they were told and the men nodded. "OK. Now who is your pilot?"
The men raised their guns higher as Adam looked at his watch. "Not us. We can't fly. We were told to load the plane, but the pilot should be here any minute. You can take our cars, though."
"We have cars. We want a plane, and a pilot," the man snarled.
"I absolutely can't believe that I...ME!...am squatting, freezing my butt off, in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska, to pee," said Penelope.
Serena and Lillian smiled, and Emily and JJ laughed lightly. With the promise of their destination so close, they were all feeling like they were coming back into themselves a little, and humor was an option again.
When they were all done, Emily lead the way around the side of the shack and then stopped quickly holding her hand behind her to tell the group to freeze. "Damn it," she hissed, stepping back behind the shack. She looked at JJ and hissed. "Three men. Two with guns drawn on the group, one of them is holding Spencer with a gun to his head. It's a standoff and we only have this one gun, and I have a crappy angle for anything more than a shot on the man closest to us."
She glanced beyond the group when she saw movement coming over a hill. It looked like a child, not much bigger than Caleb, and whoever it was was pulling an animal of some sort. After a few seconds, the vision became clearer. Not a child, a very small woman, easily well in her fifties, with light brown skin and long black hair, wearing no more than a sweater and jeans out here in the frigid air, a gun slung over her back, and pulling a goat behind her. She saw them standing there, but didn't draw her gun.
Emily assumed this was Hannah, but the look on their faces must have clued Hannah in that something was wrong, because her steps became nearly silent as she approached them. She walked forward and peeked around the side of the shack.
"Those boys. I swear any time I'm in the vicinity of Adam and Jacob when they're together, I have to go in and save their asses," whispered Hannah with a smirk on her face. Emily couldn't quite believe it. This woman's eyes sparkled like this was an adventure and though she was so much smaller than Emily, Emily had the feeling that Hannah could take her down in seconds.
"You're Emily," Hannah whispered, as she crouched down on one knee. "I've seen your picture once. I figured you were part of the group with Jacob, though his email didn't give names."
Emily raised her eyebrows at JJ and Penelope and then turned to look at Hannah, who smiled. She handed the rope tied to the goat to Serena. "Don't let him go, Honey, I have some goats back home I need to knock up."
Then Hannah removed the gun and strap from around her and started whispering as she took the strap off her rifle, handed the rifle to Emily, took off her sweater, and took Emily's handgun instead. "Jacob showed up on my doorstep about eight years ago, back when Anaktuvuk was completely dry, no alcohol allowed at all. He had enough whiskey with him to drown himself and he got drunk and spilled his guts out about what he'd done to you. He showed me your picture."
The whole time the group of them just stared, Penelope's arms around Lillian, trying to keep her calm, as they watched this woman take the strap from her rifle and twist it so she could put her arms in it, creating a strong X on her back with the fabric. Hannah continued, "He left vowing to go back to DC and wait until you needed him, because he owed you. I don't think he's quite done paying his debt for his asshole moves back then, so let's get out of this one, eh?"
Hannah took Emily's gun and placed it in the harness she'd made for herself, right behind her neck. She put her sweater back on and winked at them. "OK, Emily, I know you're a good shot. You go back around the other side of the shack. I'm going to walk out there like I'm caught by surprise. I'm going to hope the man of yours being held has the good sense to duck when a gunshot goes off and the grip is loosened?"
Emily and JJ nodded, still stunned by this small woman. "Good!" Hannah whispered with a smile. "You wait until I'm over in my position and then I want you to take out a leg on the closest man. If it all goes how I know it will, we'll be in the air in a few minutes!"
Hannah stood and marched right out into the open, like she was just on a stroll and Emily motioned for JJ to stay with the others. She brushed her hand gently on Serena's cheek. She rounded the shack, rifle in hand, and got down on her stomach on the freezing ground, lining up a shot on the closest man's leg.
She watched Hannah look shocked and raise her hands in the air.
"You the pilot?" one man shouted.
"Yes!"
"You armed?"
"No."
"Lift up your shirt and pant legs and show us."
Hannah did as she was told, her long hair covering the handgun on the back of her neck. Then she stepped in a little closer.
"Freeze right there," the man commanded after Hannah had taken a few steps.
Hannah froze and nodded her head at the man, but Emily knew that was for her. She took aim and hit the man closest to her in the thigh. She watched Spencer elbow the man holding him and flop to the ground, and before Emily could even get another shot off, Hannah had removed the gun from the back of her neck and fired three clean shots, taking them all out.
Hannah looked back at Emily and yelled, "Nice one!"
Emily stood and met up with JJ and the rest of the girls. Serena put her arm around Emily's waist and JJ stared at Emily. "Well, the good news," said JJ with the sarcasm Emily loved but hadn't heard since this all started, "is that I think we're going to get along with Hannah just fine."