Chapter 36

Unknown village
South of Bacerac
Sonora, Mexico

Inside the Arena

Spencer

"No!"

Just as Spencer hauled Henry to the top of the hole he saw the water close over his wife's head. No, he thought, she cannot die in this place. There is much I have to let them have, they may not have her. "Lower me down!" He cried to Morgan and Meija as soon as Henry was safe in Jo's arms. "Lower me down!"

He was the lightest, there were ropes in the bags, and they quickly helped him over the edge and down the walls of the oubliette. He had just enough reach to lock his hands around his wife's forearms, and was so very grateful to feel her grab hold. Just one second more, he thought, just one second more. "Pull!"

They pulled and hauled and the moss on the sides that had made it too slippery to climb now helped as they pulled her free of the water and then up over the edge. She fell into his arms, gasping, maybe even sobbing. "Where is she!" Kat panted out. "Where is he? Where's Henry?"

"I'm right here!" Henry cried, throwing himself into her arms.

"You're all right! You're all right!" She was checking him over to be sure, but he was, he was fine if a bit damp. She looked up at Spencer with shock and wonder. "You did it! You saved him he didn't die!"

"We did it." Spencer reminded her. "And you didn't die either." She just looked at him in confusion at that and buried herself in his arms again.

After a few moments to recover Jo cleared her throat. "Uhhh, brainless. It's getting on to nightfall. We need to get to the wall and make camp."

Make camp? Spencer was about to ask when Kat pushed the wet hair back from her face, nodding. "Yeah, come on, let's go. Can you walk?" She asked Jo.

Jo's injury had to be painful, but she gritted her teeth and forced her weight onto her injured leg. "I'll manage. Let's get moving."

Thankfully the universe decided to smile on them for once, they weren't that far from the wall of the dome. "Now what?" Morgan asked.

"Now we start walking along the edge until we come up with an idea." Kat told him. Jo was right, Spencer thought, she couldn't lie worth a damn. "Or until we find a good place to camp."

"Okay, which way?'

"Clockwise."

Kat took point this time. She kept looking up at the edge, looking for something. The shimmering, squiggly spots, he realized, and she was computing trajectories and distances as she went. All we have to do is find the right spot. But then how do we get the last piece?

After not too long they found it, a spot some appropriate distance and angle from a shimmering spot with a light pole nearby. "We should camp." Kat said. "Before the kids get too tired to walk. And Jo should get off that leg."

"After we get some firewood." Jo said. "Might as well with no one hunting us. Pretty boy here and I will go this way, Meija why don't you and Jack go that way. Kat, you're good with shelters and Morgan here can help with the heavy lifting."

This better be part of a plan, Spencer thought, because on its own it's really dumb. "Right." He obediently followed Jo clockwise around the dome.

Outside the Arena

Hotch

"What are they doing?" JJ asked.

"Making camp from the looks of it." Hotch replied. The people running this were helpful, at least. They started switching between cameras, showing each of the three groups, Meija and Jack gathering kindling, Jo and Morgan tipping a car while Henry looked on, Reid and Jo fetching more wood.

"I was hoping they were going to try something." Rossi grumbled. "The US Army is not known for patience."

"Wait a minute." JJ said, disbelief growing in her voice. "What are they doing?"

"Who?" Hotch came over to look.

"Jo and Spencer. What…what are they doing?"

Inside the Arena

Spencer

Jo led them a little ways away, looking around like she was trying to keep her eyes everywhere at once. But then, all of a sudden, she turned, pressed him up against a low wall, and ground her pelvis into his. "What are you doing?!" He asked, quietly enough.

"Have you told her yet?" Jo asked loudly. She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pulled him in, pressing her lips against his. "About us?"

Huh? "Wh…what?" He pulled his head back and tried to disentangle himself. She's lost it, he thought, the stress. Maybe she's hallucinating from the heat.

"I'm going to take that as a no." She leaned in again, locking her hand around his neck and pulling his lips to hers, this time her tongue taking delicate licks against the seam to try to get him to open for him. When that didn't work she tipped her head and mouthed his jaw bone, the sensitive spot under his ear, sucking his lobe in to her hot, busy mouth. "Play along." She whispered right into his ear. "Cameras. Distraction."

Right. I'm sorry Katniss, he thought. Then Jo's mouth was back on his and he kissed her with all the desperation he could muster. Right before her hands went for his zipper.

Outside the Arena

Hotch

"Oh. My. God." JJ was shocked. Outraged. Verging on deadly. And Hotch had to admit, it was understandable. "They are not…."

No, they were.

From this angle they couldn't really see, but it was clear that Jo was getting right into Reid's pants. And then she was dropping to her knees. And Reid was happily going right along. "When this is over remind me to fire him." Hotch said, far too calmly. It wasn't that Reid might actually be having an affair, it was that Jack's live was at stake and he was…

"The question is not what those two are doing." Rossi said, with genuine calm. "You'll notice that the cameras have stopped rotating. So the question is what are Kat and Morgan doing?"

Inside the Arena

Morgan

Kat kept watching Jo and Spencer as they headed out of sight. "This car looks like it could tip over onto its side." She said, as she watched them. "Can we tip it?"

"If we work at it." It was flat in the right places. They put their backs into it, and with no small effort the car in question was over on its side, it's roof facing the dome. "There's a reason for this?"

"Yeah. Hey Henry?" She called to the little boy. "Come over back here. This is going to be camp, all right. Why don't you dig out the tarps we brought and have a granola bar?" But all the while she was steadily watching Spencer and Jo.

At some point they had stopped, and from here Morgan could see an expression a lot like pain cross his friend's face. "What the hell?" Where was Jo?

"Ignore them." She pulled out some heavy gloves and the multi-tool he kept in the kitchen drawer back home and pointed to the top of the nearby light pole. "I need as much conductive wire as you can give me." She said, as she passed the tool over and pulled out an arrow. "And keep it connected to the power source."

"You want hot wire?" She could not be serious.

"Yeah, I want hot wire."

Spencer

If there was one aspect of his relationship with Kat that Spencer had always been pleased with it was their sex life. He had been patient at first, had not even brought it up, knowing that she was recovering from years of trauma and from the de facto loss of her fiancée Peeta when this aspect got trapped here by the paradox. But over time they had grown closer, and they had eventually discussed, and mutually they decided to wait until their wedding day to seal their commitment with the age-old ritual of the first time. Call it weird in this day and age, but it made them both happy, and he was proud to say that other than a brief reaction to one Lila Archer in a swimming pool there had been no one else but his wife.

Until today.

Thankfully Jo was skillful at this sort of thing. She hadn't actually pulled him from his trousers, was fooling the cameras by sucking on her own thumb, but her mouth really was only inches away and there was only the thin cotton of his boxers protecting him and there was a certain rhythmic pressure going on as she mimicked fellatio. In the end he was only human. He just hoped that the expressions crossing his face as he fought off the sensations could be mistaken for passion.

"How are we doing?" She murmured, her hot breath washing across his skin.

He fought off the throbbing that followed and opened his eyes just in time to see Morgan climbing down off the light pole. He groaned in a positive sort of way and nodded like he couldn't help it.

"Then push me away." She murmured again.

Act. Right. This one will be easier. "No, Jo, I can't." He reached down and pushed on her shoulder, covering his fly with his other hand. "Not here, not like this. I won't do this to Kat."

She feigned a sprawl into the dirt. "This may be your last chance." She said with a very feline smile.

He just shook his head and made a show of zipping up. "No." He said again.

She got to her feet, dusted off her hands and knees and turned like she was subbing him. "Your loss." She spotted a couple of shutters lying in a heap beside a wall. "Oh look, firewood." Like it was all so tiresome.

They brought those back to camp only to find that they had used a tipped over car and a tarp to make a shelter. And under it, where no camera could see, was an arrow with a coiled length of wire attached. Here we go, he thought. "I love you." He murmured to Kat when he was close. "Always will."

"Always." She smiled back.

Then Jack and Meija were there with kindling. "I don't think this shelter will help much with sleep. " Meija said. "They are turning the lights on."

Outside the Arena

Hotch

Through what looked to be the nearly solid wall of energy they could see hazy circles as the lights started coming on. "They won't be able to sleep." JJ murmured.

"Missing a night's sleep is the least of their worries." Hotch replied. They ducked back in to the trailer just to see Kat pull back on her bow. "What the…?"

The explosion nearly tipped the trailer over.

BAU Headquarters
FBI Building
Quantico, VA

Garcia

I do not get paid enough for this, Garcia thought.

It wasn't enough that she was trying everything she had to track back the video feed. No, now in at the same time she had to clean up the video they had to make it look like Jo and Kat were already in the Arena when Reid and Morgan and the Mexican soldiers went in after them to keep the military off everyone's back, as well as listen in on what the military was saying in case they decided to get all suspicious and stuff. She could clone herself three times over, and still be busy.

And then she lost the video feed.

And then her phone started ringing.

"I do not have time for this." She growled through clenched teeth as she tried to re-establish the feed and her trackback program pinged that it found something. "I do not have time for this. I do not have time for this. What!" She snapped as she answered the freaking phone.

This is a Hiker's Spot with a prerecorded message….