AN: This author? Updating regularly? More likely than you would think. Anyway I was actually planning on getting this out yesterday but I got sucked into reading a bunch of Wikipedia articles. Have any of y'all heard of the Fermi paradox? That one had me thinking all night. If you want to read about something that'll make you feel philosophical, go ahead and read about it. But I warn you, you might end up staying up all night thinking about it. Whoops now I'm off topic, but anyway, enjoy the update I guess?

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters

Penelope Garcia wrapped her pink trench coat tighter around herself against the strong winds that seemed determined to push her over. The whole day had been gloomy and windy, with not even a hint of sunshine, which, Garcia figured, was fitting for this situation. She was walking down a strip of pavement, the heels on her shoes making a satisfy clacking noise that she didn't even get to enjoy because the only emotion that consumed her was worry.

"Don't worry sweet cheeks," said Damien, her very own "Private Pilot" whom she had contacted two days ago. If even this strange man who she had just met could tell she was nervous, she knew she was very out of it. He put a hand on her shoulder as they continued to walk that she assumed was meant to be comforting, but really it felt like it was weighing her down. "We'll get yer friends back in no time" he said with a toothy grin.

Yesterday, she had gotten into contact with Damien on the Private Pilots webpage and, after doing a thorough background check, she determined that she was going to hire him. So here she was, walking down a runway strip with a complete stranger about to board a plane that would take her into a highly dangerous storm, and that wasn't even what she was worried about. She was worried that her friends could be hurt, or maybe even… No, she wouldn't let her mind go there. The only times she thought about that were when she accidentally let herself slip into a fitful sleep, full of horrifying dreams about all of her worst fears.

"This is her, doll face, my beautiful plane!" he exclaimed.

"Can this thing even fit seven people?" she asked, ignoring the stupid, and honestly outdated and sexist pet name. The question was very valid. The plane looked like it had seen better days, with scrapy metal almost hanging off the side and even a cracked window. It also looked like maybe four people at max could fit inside of it.

"You didn't tell me it needed to fit seven" he said accusingly.

"Yes I most definitely did!" she retorted, distinctly remembering the moment she had told the man about her six teammates whom had been on the flight that never arrived.

"I thought you said this plane crashed 'several days ago over open water'" he said, mocking her tone. "If that's the case, then we probably won't need six extra seats. I bet you anything they're already dead at the bottom of the ocean. Now baby girl, if you're not gonna pay for my high quality services, then get outta my face." he snarled. Something inside of her snapped as she raised her palm and slapped the man hard across the face, leaving a ringing echo sound across the vast strip of pavement. She didn't know exactly what pushed her over the edge, maybe how he talked about her beloved teammates, or perhaps when he used that nickname. The one that only Morgan could use.

Damien looked up at her and said, "bitch" and then proceeded to spit on the ground. She noted with satisfaction that there was a red imprint of a hand on his face and then stormed away as angrily as she could, all the while muttering things about Damien under her breath.

She reached the parking lot out front of the sketchy private pilot's building and leaned against the brick wall. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and was about to call a cab for herself, when an unfamiliar dark green SUV pulled up in front of her. The windows were tinted so she couldn't get a look at the drivers face. Fear coursed through her veins dully, as she looked around and saw that she was alone in the lot.

The driver rolled down the window and Garcia gasped. This was probably the absolute last person she had expected to see out here.

Spencer Reid had been feeling slightly dazed and out of it for the whole day. But when he saw the reason Morgan had dragged them halfway around the island, a sudden clarity settled over his mind. He looked over what he knew to be a medium sized ferry boat. It looked to have been there for a while, with clusters of barnacles growing on the part of the boat that was partially submerged. The boat looked like at some point it was painted blue, but now all that was left was a few chips of blue paint here and there. It had an upper deck with what looked like old chairs or seats of some sort in a circle around the edge, where there was a railing, meant to keep ignorant tourists from falling over the edge. Below the top deck there was a dark stairwell that led to something that Spencer couldn't be sure of.

"What… How did it get here?" Emily asked, shock evident in her voice.

"My guess," Morgan said, raising an eyebrow like he did when he was profiling, "Is that they were taking some tourists out and maybe something happened to the boat and it stopped working, or maybe there was some rough weather. Either way, the captain thought it was too dangerous to continue. He got the life boats down from where they usually hung on the side of the boat," he pointed to a spot where the paint was less faded from sun exposure than the rest of the boat that was shaped almost like a dinghy, "and they all rowed to safety" he concluded.

"Either that or they crashed on this island and all died here" Rossi said.

"Way to lighten the mood" JJ said with a roll of her eyes.

"Either way, we have to check out this ship and see if there's anyway we can use it to get back home, whether that be a way to contact someone or a vessel we can use" Emily said authoritatively.

"Agreed. I say we split up into groups of two and explore the ship for around 20 minutes and then meet back up again on the top deck. We can bring back useful things that we find and have a group discussion" Hotch said. Reid scoffed a little bit at this. He didn't know why, because he was usually so good about keeping things like that on the inside. It probably had something to do with the fever. He just thought it was funny how Hotch said group discussion like in kindergarten. Not that he knew much about kindergarten, anyway. He had almost immediately been taken out of it and moved up some grades when they had realised his potential.

"Okay, Emily, you and JJ take the top deck, see what's up there. Hotch, you and Rossi can split the bottom deck with Pretty Boy and me." Morgan said with a grin aimed in Reid's direction. Reid rolled his eyes at the nickname but nodded in agreement with the plan.

"Okay, see you all back here in twenty minutes" Hotch said. The six agents paired off and wandered off in their assigned directions. Reid lingered a second and watched, almost in a trance, as Morgan walked towards the boat. His head felt light and heavy all at the same time and his thoughts were cloudy.

"You commin, Reid, or are you gonna let Hotch and Rossi find all the good stuff?" Morgan asked as he looked back at him. The words snapped him back to the present and he looked up from where he had apparently been studying the ground.

He followed Morgan up the ramp that was meant to let passengers onto the boat and noticed the frayed and worn blue carpet beneath his feat. He put his hands on the railing to ground himself further and dragged his fingers over the somehow smooth surface as he walked up the ramp. The whole thing felt so surreal. They reached the stairwell that led down to, well, something, and the railing ended abruptly, leaving Reids hand hanging in the air, grasping for something that wasn't there. It was sheltered by the overhanging of the top deck and Reid could see a place where there had most certainly been a happy emblem of some ship name or another. It had been worn away, chipped at, until there was nothing left/

The stairs themselves were covered in the same blue carpeting that the ramp had been coated with, but this carpet had fared slightly better than its outdoor counterpart. Although still worn and slightly faded, Reid could see the royal blue color more clearly on these stairs. As he started to descend the stairs behind Morgan, the musty smell of the staircase filled his reminded him of the smell of his basement in his childhood home. That wasn't exactly something he wanted to be thinking about right now.

Instead of focusing on the smell, he looked around the darkened stairwell. There was evidence of pictures that used to be hung on the wall, like old nails stuck in at odd places. He looked to see where they had gone and then he heard a distinct crunch sound under his feet. He looked down and what he had thought was confirmed. A glass photo had shattered under his foot. He looked closer, and although it was hard to make out behind the spindly spiderwebs of cracked glass, it looked to be a picture in black and white of four men, all holding up big fish that they had caught and smiling way too wide for it to be natural. For reasons he didn't care to explore, this made him unmistakably sad. Before he ended up crying over this picture, he kept moving and followed Morgan deeper down the stairwell full of shattered memories.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was an old door that looked like it had been kicked open. Reid assumed it was probably the work of Hotch or Rossi. He watched as Morgan slowly pushed past the door and went forward into the darkness. He followed cautiously behind him and saw a long hallway with four doors, two on either side of the hall. Reid could see no sign of Hotch or Rossi and was forced to assume that they had moved further down the hallway, leaving the first two doors for Morgan and him. Morgan stood, bracing himself against the first door on the left, and looked to Reid to get a nod of approval to see if he was ready. Reid nodded.

Morgan pushed open the door and immediately, the room was flooded with light. Reid quickly found the source, a small circular window, surprisingly intact. on the opposite wall. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the light after the darkness of the hallway. Once they did, he looked around and saw that they were in some sort of living quarters. There was a bunk bed on one wall with ragged blankets limp pillows. On the wall with the window, there hung at layers of different maps and sea charts, which Reid was very excited to take a look at when he had the time. And on the wall across from the bunk bed. Was a simple wooden desk nailed to the floor with two drawers and what looked like a stack of rotting paper and a couple of pens on top of it. Reid was eager to read what was written on them but that could wait.

He walked over to the desk while Morgan walked over to the beds and started examining them. A preliminary glance told him that the papers were letters addressed to someone named Clara and signed by a Captain Cal. He shuffled through the papers and it revealed that the rest of the papers were all the same: to Clara, from Captain Cal. He knew he would take more time to read and analyse the letters later, but for now he turned his attention to the two drawers.

He started by opening the drawer on the right and the first thing he saw was a black and white photograph of a young, beautiful couple. He could tell it was old. The woman was smiling up at the man like he was the only person in the world. Reid looked over at the man and his eyebrows shot up as he recognized him as one of the men from the fishing photo he had stepped on in the hallway. He had a handsome face and a strong jaw. He was gazing at the woman in a similar way to which she was looking at him. He picked up the photo and flipped it over. On the back it read, " Cal and Clara, 1955".

Reid continued looking through the drawer and found a compass engraved with the name Calvin Young, an old feather pen, a worn pearl necklace, and a rusty wrench. Spencer sighed. He knew each of these things had a story, and he was starting to piece it together.

He moved on to the other drawer and saw a black and white photo of a young boy sitting on the knee of a man, who Spencer assumed was his father. He looked at the face of the man and his eyebrows shot up again as he recognised this man from the fishing photo as well. The pieces were definitely starting to come together now. Also in the drawer, was a carefully folded knitted scarf that was practically falling apart, a set of rusty keys, and an old leather baseball glove. He pocketed the keys, thinking they may be useful for something later.

"You find anything good?" Morgan who had come up behind him asked. Spencer had been so engrossed in what he had found that he startled slightly when Morgan had spoken.

"Ah, nothing really useful. Some old keys that might come in handy later, but that's about it. You?" he asked.

"Well, I think some of these pillows and blankets are salvageable, and even if they're not, sleeping on these cots will definitely be better than cold hard wood." he replied. Spencer gave him a half hearted smile, knowing all too well the that bamboo had on ones already precarious if not non-existent sleep schedule.

"Let's check the next room" he said to Morgan as he motioned to the door across the hall.

"Yeah, hopefully, they'll be something interesting in there." Morgan said. Reid didn't reply but followed as Morgan jimmied open the slightly crusted shut door. The setup of this room looked mostly the same, with the beds on one side, the window on the wall across from them, and the desk on the wall across from the beds.

Reid was not surprised to open the other two drawers and find personal belongings and photographs of the other two men who had been in the fishing photo. This time, there wasn't any paper on the desk and it was almost barren, save for a framed photograph that had fallen over. He reached over and picked it up. The photo was of a man that Reid recognised as Calvin, standing in front of a boat, the three other men from the picture were there two. They were all smiling and clapping each other on the backs. With a bit of shock, Reid realised that the boat they were standing in front of in the black and white photo was the same one that he was standing in now. Although it looked very different and a lot more run down now, it was unmistakably the same ship.

Reid wondered what had happened to these four men, what stories they had to tell.

He turned his attention to the wall with the window. There was only one map on this wall instead of the many that had been on the other wall. It was a map of the Central American area. There was a dotted line drawn on it in pen that looked old and was barely distinguishable, but he could tell it went from the tip of Cuba to Cancún. Yes, the pieces were coming together indeed.

A sudden head rush made him sway on his feet slightly. He stumbled backwards until he was sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk of the bed.

"Reid, you okay man?" Morgan asked, concern ebbing into his voice. Yeah, he wanted to say, I'll be okay as soon as the room stops spinning.

But he didn't. instead he said, "yeah, I'm fine just tired is all. I'm sure I'll feel better after getting a good night's rest on a real bed". Morgan looked doubtful, trying to see through the excuse for cracks, but after a moment his face relaxed back into an easy smile.

"I feel that man. I haven't slept well in days." he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed next to Reid. "Did you find anything good?" he asked. Reid shook his head, but regretted it slightly when the action made everything uproot and start spinning around the room again. But he covered up a slight wince by looking away towards the door.

"I wonder if the others found anything interesting?" he asked. If Morgan noticed the abrupt change of subject, he didn't say anything and for that Spencer was greatful.

"Yeah," Morgan said distantly, "I wonder."

AN: Well there that is. I don't know how I feel about this chapter, it just seems different from other things I've written for some reason? Let me know what you think :)