Brian and Ray waited at the top of the stairs, talking to each other in hushed voices as JJ and Reid slowly, painfully made their way up the simple fourteen steps that would have been easy if they were under normal circumstances.

But they weren't.

So they took their time. JJ was still numb from painkillers so she mostly helped the wheezing Reid as he tried to step up the stairs, his legs barely able to bend. He looked over at the woman beside him who had her arm around his waist, helping him up. "JJ…I don't know if you knew," he muttered through pants, "but just in case I never get the chance to tell you…I want you to know that I…I had a crush on you when you first joined the BAU."

"Spence…" JJ chuckled lightly as they went up another step, "I knew."

Reid looked over at her in surprise, "You did?"

"I did." She met his eyes, a small smile playing on her lips, "And for a while…I did like you back…I really did, but then…when Giddeon left and you hit a rough patch we sort of…grew apart and I met Will." She looked at the ground for a moment before meeting his gaze again, "But I just want you to know that I love you, Spence. I do."

Reid smiled back at her, "I love you too, Jayje." He replied, watching as JJ's eyes clouded like she was going to say something important, so he stayed silent and listened.

They went up another step.

"I've never told anyone this…and if this is the end, I want at least one person to know so that maybe you can tell my brother, I've always wanted him to know." JJ paused, gulping, "When I was 14, three years after my sister died, my parents were having a really hard time. And by hard I mean, screaming almost every single night, arguing constantly, non-stop anger all over the house. I hated it…and one night when they were screaming at each other downstairs again, I just…climbed out my window and walked out onto the roof of my house. It was two stories high so when I peeked over the edge the concrete sidewalk was more than 10 feet away. It felt good outside, crisp, almost peaceful, except for the fact that I could still hear my parents from where I was sitting on the tilted roof just outside my window. So I walked across the roof to the peak of the house where the drop to the ground was even further. I closed my eyes, still able to hear my parents' voices coming out of my window." She closed her eyes, "I balanced on the peak, felt the breeze, and walked. Slowly, blindly I walked towards the edge, feeling like I didn't care if it ended, like I didn't have anywhere else to go…like that was my last option, the only way to get out of there. I stopped when I felt the toes of my foot hanging off the edge. And…I opened my eyes. I leaned forward and looked over the edge again, but I wasn't scared, I…wanted to take the last step and I would have if my brother hadn't called me from my window to say goodbye to my sister, my other sister. That was the night that she was moving out to go to college and when I was saying goodbye to her, I knew that I was taking on a new responsibility for my brother so…I never tried again because I couldn't leave him…It just scares me to think how close I was to doing the same thing that my sister had done." JJ gave him a small, half-hearted smile, "I told you that because if you make it out instead of me…I want you to tell my brother that and thank him…for saving my life." She finished with a smile.

"Don't talk like that, JJ. We'll both get out and you'll be able to look him in the eyes and tell him that story, you'll be able to tell him that he saved your life and it will be so much better." Reid reassured her.

And then they reached the top step where they became face to face with Brian and Ray.

"About time." Ray muttered, "Come on." He started walking through the dark rooms. There were no windows on this floor, meaning the only light coming in was from one of two places: the stairs and a flashlight that Brian was shining around.

As they were walking, JJ felt a hand on her back. She wasn't sure who it was so she whipped her head over at Reid, but was only able to see the whites of his eyes. She was almost positive that it wasn't him touching her, but she didn't want to worry him so she kept walking, this time at a faster pace.

"Now, JJ…" Ray's voice came from just behind her, a whisper in her ear, sending a chill down her spine. She realized that it was his hand that was on her back, "I understand that you escaped from the hospital to take Reid's place, correct?"

JJ turned around, looking in the direction that the voice had come from. "Correct." She whispered.

"Good, good." Ray smiled, "Not like it matters though." He muttered sinisterly, his hand slowly sliding down her back, making her feel extremely uncomfortable. It wasn't until he reached her butt that she finally whipped around and swung blindly in the darkness, catching the side of his face with the back of her hand. He cursed and backed away, muttering something that she didn't bother to hear.

"Stay away from me." JJ ordered before following the sound of footsteps she heard coming from Reid.

"You okay?" He asked when she approached.

She nodded, "Yea. Nothing I couldn't handle."

Brian, who was holding the flashlight, stopped in front of them and waited until a bloody faced Ray made their way over to them. He glared at JJ before speaking, "This, my contestants, is the final round of this…challenge of sorts you have gone through. There are only three rules: One of you must die, the other must live and…the death that occurs to one must be done at the hands of the other." He explained. "Whoever comes out alive will get to leave."

JJ and Reid met each other's eyes, blankly.

"So if you didn't know what that meant…" Brian started to clarify, but they both tuned him out, still staring into the eyes of the person across from them.

They already knew.

JJ reached out and took Reid's hand, squeezing it tightly. Tears came to her eyes suddenly as she took in the severity of what their captors were asking them to do. She stepped closer to Reid and they held each other closely, both of them only catching the last sentence of Brian's speech.

"Meaning, by midnight…one of you is going to have to kill the other."

Leonard Harris' house turned out to be much larger than any of the BAU had expected. It looked to be a mansion, probably worth at least 700,000 dollars to maintain. From what Will had explained, this man had grown up in a wealthy household of homemade jewelers. They had a staff of a little over 100 people that made the jewelry, which was later shipped to stores all around Virginia and sold. He, however, was friends with Will and had given him an expensive piece of jewelry for much less money than it was worth, which he had later given to JJ as a gift.

The group walked up the grandiose sidewalk, Will leading, and rang the loud, almost medieval sounding door bell. It swung open a few moments later to reveal a handsome man wearing a dark blue flannel shirt, a red tie and black pants.

"Will! You look like hell!" Lenny stepped forward and embraced his friend, "What are you doing here? And with this posse?"

Hotch pulled out his badge, "We're with the FBI."

Lenny backed away a little bit, re-entering his house. He didn't look pleased to be seeing the FBI on his property.

Will gave him a small, sad smile. "Jennifer is missing. She went undercover with another team member and they were both abducted. She left behind the bracelet that you made and they think it might have something to do with where she is." He stepped forward, "You're my last hope, Lenny. They say that if we don't find them by midnight then…then…" He paused and stared at the ground, "they'll both be dead."

Lenny's expression completely changed from one of defensiveness to one of compassion, "Y-yea, yes sure of course. Come in, come in." He stepped aside to allow all of the agents into his house.

They gathered in the living room, sitting down at some of the couches in the room. It was large, allowing all of them to be able to sit down somewhere.

Lenny leaned forward, rubbing his hands together. "What do you need to know?"

Emily spoke first, her voice calm and controlled, but the other trained agents could tell that she had to try really hard to keep it that way. "Um, did JJ ever come here and ask you about the bracelet? Maybe where it came from, how it was made…"

Lenny paused and glanced at Will before responding, "Yes. She did. It was a few weeks ago, a couple of days after Will had told me he gave it to her. She came by and thanked me for it, said that it was really kind of me to sell it to Will so cheap. I could tell she was curious, everyone is, so I offered to show her how they were made."

Will buried his face in his hands, looking like he was just about ready to lose it.

"And…how are they made?"

Lenny pointed to the back door, "There is a large warehouse on my property where the team makes the jewelry, there are people in there 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, they take shifts. I, myself, only made jewelry when I was in college and needed a job. Basically, the pearls are imported from some cheap business that runs out of Virginia Beach. They mostly harvest fish so when they find pearls, shells, anything artsy they send it to us. We buy the metal from a plant in Fairfax, also fairly cheap and um, the jewels are made in a factory in Raleigh, which we buy from."

Hotch nodded and turned to look at Will, "What is JJ's bracelet made from?"

Without pulling it out, Will already knew. "Pearls and a metal chain."

"So…they're in Virginia Beach…somewhere?" Morgan asked, looking at the other members.

Rossi shrugged, "Brian and Ray could be holding them in one of the cargo boxes. Or they might even be on a boat or something." He suggested.

Emily bit her lip, "How do we know which one? Maybe the watch has something else to do with where JJ went. What is the watch made of? Maybe there are materials in it that come from the coast too…?"

"No, no." Hotch muttered from where he was sitting. He shook his head, "This can't be it. JJ was on the run, in a hurry out of the hospital, probably in pain, scared. She wouldn't have time to think about all of these things. We need to get into her mind, what she was thinking." He looked at everyone else in the room, "This isn't about the bracelet at all. It's about Will, it's always been about him. If she was scared, rushed, probably thinking that she would never see her family again, wouldn't she be thinking about her husband? We need to re-think everything." He paused, "Will. Where did you give that to JJ?"

Will lifted his head, eyes puffy and red. "It was in the park. We were walking there while Henry was at daycare, she always loved that place because…it reminded her of home, which I thought was weird considering all the-"

"Warehouses and storage compartments!" Emily cut him off.

Morgan was on his feet before she even finished and already jogging towards the door, "Let's get down there."

Will gave Lenny a grateful look, "Thanks bud, for everything."

"Anytime, good luck man."

And then the rest of the team, including Will, ran out of the house and climbed into the cars, racing off to the warehouses surrounding the park that were at least 45 minutes from where they were, even with speeding.

Will's eyes were closed. He could see that the sky was dark and the moon was high, but he couldn't look at the time on the dashboard. He knew that it had to be close, but he didn't want to check. "Hotch…" He said, slowly, "Is it good?"

Hotch immediately knew what he was talking about. He looked down at the digital time blinking on the dashboard radio. It was 11:25, but he knew that he couldn't tell Will that so he covered the small strip on the dashboard where the time was showing with a napkin, stepped down harder on the gas and replied, "Don't worry about it."