The team had been sitting in the conference room working on the case the best they could until Spencer returned with JJ. After a couple hours however, they knew something was off.

"Morgan, Prentiss I want you two to go to JJ's apartment and see what's taking them so long," Hotch finally said.

Derek and Emily nodded and got up to leave, "take a vest and your guns. Treat it like you're walking onto a scene."

Emily and Derek looked at Hotch questioningly.

"You think something has gone down?" Derek asked.

"I'm not sure, but they should be back by now."

"Should we take back up?" Emily added to Derek's question.

"No, but be ready to call for it. I don't think you'll have anything to worry about if something has gone wrong."

The two agents left the conference room and went to get their vest.

"You think something happened to them, don't you?" Rossi asked.

"Like I said, they should be back by now," Hotch replied, a sinking feeling had started in his stomach, "let's get back to work, Garcia tell me again about the victims you found..."

While Aaron, David and Penelope were at BAU headquarters trying to break the case without Spencer, Emily and Derek were in their van driving to JJ's apartment.

"Do you think they're okay?" Emily had asked Derek.

"I don't know, Hotch was right about them being back by now," Derek answered, "Spencer left three hours ago, it's not like JJ's apartment is very far."

"But the unsub wouldn't have gone after JJ, that's not in his profile-"

"This man is desperate though, he'll do anything to prove to the CIA that they failed him and that means killing Reid."

"How would going after JJ help him get to Reid though?"

"Spencer cares about her more than anyone else on the team, and she feels the same way about him."

"They aren't-?" Emily began smiling.

"They probably will be sooner or later. JJ knows how she feels about him, now all we need is for Will to get out of the way and for Pretty Boy to get a clue."

Emily laughed, "I can't believe I'm gossiping with ladies man Derek Morgan about our Reid, especially with JJ?! I mean, I suppose I'm not surprised-"

Derek smiled, "there's a first for everything, I think Reid has more moves than he lets on and I'm not just talking about defence either."

"Yeah, I was surprised with how well he stood his ground when that man attacked him in his apartment," Emily said, "I don't want to say it, but I always wondered how he had made it into the FBI with how frail he seems."

"He's a CIA agent, he's anything but frail," Derek replied, "even before I knew about that I always knew Reid was strong. Maybe not physically, but he's strong willed and knows how to survive. He did amazing with Hankel, I just wish I had known about the Dilaudid sooner and that I had done something about it."

"It wasn't your fault," Emily reassured him, "none of us did anything even after we started suspecting."

"What if he relapses because of this though?"

"We won't let him Morgan, we're here for him and we won't let him go down that road again. He's stronger than he looks, just like you said."

"I was so proud of how he survived Hankel, I couldn't have blamed him if he had lost his head, but he didn't," Derek went on, "he kept his cool and saved himself. I don't know if we would've found him in time if he hadn't given us that clue. I'm proud of him, I'd trust him with my life."

"I would too," Emily agreed.

"I still can't believe he didn't trust us with all this."

"He was afraid Morgan, just like you were about telling us about Buford."

"I guess you're right, I just wish he had trusted me enough to tell me. He's like a brother to me."

"Did you trust him with tbe truth about Buford? Before we found out ourselves, I mean?" Emily asked.

"No," Derek answered after a few moments of silence.

The rest of the ride was silent as Derek thought about how Spencer must have felt coping all alone for so long, with so much. Derek was intent on making sure Spencer never felt alone again, and that he knew he could trust the team, especially him.

When they got to the apartment building they went straight up to JJ's apartment and noticed immediately that the door had been left open. They pulled out their guns and entered slowly, both of them gasped at the scene in front of them.

The broken coffee table, the spots of blood, the chair laying on the ground and the things that had been knocked off the walls and table. The living room and the dining room was a mess.

Emily went straight into the bathroom, "the tub in full of water Morgan, but it doesn't look like they made it that far."

"He came after JJ to kill her and send a message to Reid, what stopped him from finishing her off?" Derek wondered aloud.

"Maybe Reid came in and stopped him?" Emily suggested.

"No, I don't think so," Derek continued talking to her as he looked around the apartment, "if Reid had come in there would've been more of a struggle and someone, whether it was himself, JJ or the man would've ended up dead. Or at least critical injured."

"So, what do you think happened?"

"I'm not sure, something doesn't make sense. I think we're missing something, let's head back to headquarters and get the CSI guys down here."

"I'll give Reid a call too, maybe we can find him and get him to meet us there," Emily said as they walked out of the apartment.

Garcia had been down in her office while Aaron and David were still in the conference room. They were going through the files, anxiously awaiting Derek and Emily's return, hopefully with JJ and Spencer in toe.

Aaron's phone rang and when he saw it was Morgan the knot in his stomach somehow got tighter.

"Morgan, did you find them?" He asked in an urgent voice, his stern demeanour gone.

"No Hotch, but there's a mess here. JJ must have been attacked, but he didn't manage to finish the job. He didn't even make it to the drowning part of his ritual."

"Did Spencer walk in on it?" Aaron asked.

David sat straight up in his chair wanting to know what was being said.

"I don't think so, there's not that much of a struggle and there's not much blood. I think he may have taken her somewhere else before Reid got here."

"That doesn't match his profile-" Aaron thought aloud.

"What's going on?" David interrupted.

"Morgan and Prentiss went to JJ's apartment and it seems like JJ was attacked, but she wasn't killed. He stopped before even starting to drown her, but there's not enough of a struggle to say that Reid got there and interrupted him."

"What's the damage?" David asked.

Derek heard his question over the phone and answered, "coffee table's broken, dining room chairs are all over the place and photos are off the wall. Everything on the counters and tables were also knocked over, probably on purpose. I'm thinking she put up too much of a fight and so he took her somewhere."

"Good, that means she could still be alive," David said, "he may even keep her alive to draw Reid out, Morgan were there any notes left for Reid?"

"Not that we found, but who knows if Pretty Boy has been here already and took the note with him."

"Why wouldn't he have called us though?" Aaron wondered as procedure would've been to call and make a plan with them to save her.

"He could have threatened him, and told him not to come to us. This man was a CIA agent, he knows stuff that even we don't know," David answered before Derek could.

"That's what I was thinking, but I was hoping that wouldn't be the case," Derek sighed, "I wish Pretty Boy would come to us and trust us to help him."

"I don't think it's just about trust Morgan, he knows what this man's capable of and he's doing his best to save JJ. He cares about her a lot more than just a regular colleague, that's always been evident to me," David replied.

"We need to find them and bring them home, before it's too late," Aaron added, "have you guys tried calling him?"

"Prentiss is just doing that right now-"

"I haven't gotten an answer," Emily said, "but I'll keep trying."

Aaron got even more worried, "get back here, we need to find Reid before JJ. Finding him will either help us find her or take us to her."

Aaron hung up and Emily and Derek raced back to them as fast as they could.

"I think that's a waste of time, Reid would've already gotten there," David told Aaron, "the only explanation is that he went after them, to save her."

"I don't know if we can find her without him though," Aaron admitted, sitting down in a chair and rubbing his face roughly, "I can't stand not being able to solve this case without him-"

"You can't stand feeling helpless," David corrected, "you can't stand that you couldn't protect them."

"They're my team Rossi, I'm supposed to protect them and keep them safe the best I can. I've failed them, and I've already done so too many times, especially with Reid. I shouldn't have let them go alone. I keep making the same mistakes, I made this same-"

David knew where this was going and stopped Aaron in his tracks, "Hotch, what happened to that Elle girl wasn't your fault."

"I sent her home alone when we were all in danger, just like I did with JJ and now Reid."

"We didn't realize that he'd go after JJ-"

"Gideon and I didn't think Randall Garner would go after Elle either, but he did," Aaron sat with his head in his hands, racked with guilt.

When David tried to reassure him again that what had happened and what was happening wasn't his fault Aaron said;

"We need to focus on finding JJ and Reid right now, that's the only thing that matters. We can cope with everything else later."

While this was happening Spencer had been preparing himself to go save JJ, but the team wouldn't figure things out in time.

Spencer had gotten shot at pointblank range while trying to save JJ, what was his fate? Would the team be too late to save JJ?

Would anyone get out of that warehouse alive?

The guilt, and fear that Hotch, and the rest of the team were feeling would be nothing compared to how they'd feel after the night came to an end.

The team had no idea at that time that in only a few hours, nothing would ever be the same again.