Chapter 17 is here! Okay, so this might be the last update in quite a while because I got accepted on my dream university and we start classes in a few weeks, so all my attention is going to be on college. I have one chapter written halfway, so I might upload that.

Enjoy! Let me know your thoughts!

Disclaimer: some of the dialogue and case details are taken from "Ghost" (S15E05).

When Matt didn't answer his phone, Emily's gut told her something was wrong. Something was very wrong, but she refused to let her concerns show. She felt her heart drop when Dave told them the SUV Matt, Luke, and Tara were on got ambushed and the two men were missing. Despite the mantra of "they're going to be okay" going on in her mind, she felt tears slip down her face and swore she could hear Penelope sniffle.

"They're going to be okay, right?" Penelope asked her in a shaky voice.

Emily wiped her tears away and took a few deep breaths. "They are. But we have to help the rest of the team find them. I'll call JJ and tell her to do a cognitive on Tara after the doctor made sure she's okay."

"Okay," Penelope replied. Emily placed a hand on her shoulder and made the call, nearly bursting into tears again when she heard JJ's voice.

"Hey. How's Tara?" she asked.

"She's pretty banged up, but we're on our way to the hospital."

Before Emily could reply, she heard Tara speaking in the background although she couldn't understand what she was trying to tell JJ. "JJ, can you put me on speaker?"

"Of course."

"Emily?"

"Hey Tara."

"Emily, we can't go to a hospital right now."

"Tara –"

"No. I have to help. I have to help Luke and Matt."

"Hey, they're going to be alright, but you have to get checked out by the doctor, okay? Once you're done, JJ can do a cognitive on you, and we will get the boys back," Emily reassured her.

"Em, JJ please. You have to help me focus. T-talk me through it."

JJ sighed and even though they were on the phone, Emily could see the mother hen concerned glare on her face, one she, Spencer, and Aaron used to be the main benefactors of. It was her way of silently saying 'you're lucky I like you otherwise I would make Garcia ruin your finances.' "Are you sure?" JJ asked.

"Yes," Tara said wearily. "I-I have to try. I know I must have seen who-who took them."

"Okay," JJ said.

"Call me when you guys get to the hospital," Emily said.

"Emily?" Tara called. "I'm glad you stayed behind for this one."

Even though she felt restless with not being in the field, Emily couldn't help but agree. It could've easily been her in the SUV with Luke and Matt, and if she lost her baby, her sweet precious butterball whom she would move heaven and earth for… she didn't even want to think about those scenarios. "Me too."

"I'll call later, Em," JJ promised after a few seconds of silence. Emily said one last goodbye before hanging up, leaning back against her seat and letting out a deep breath.

"Was that JJ?" Penelope asked.

Emily nodded. "Tara wanted to get cognitive done immediately. I made JJ promise to call me when they get to the hospital. She's going to be okay, Pen."

"I hope the boys are okay," Penelope said in a small voice. Emily took her hand and squeezed it.

"They will be," she reassured her. "Luke and Matt are two of the strongest people I've ever met. They won't go down without a fight."

Penelope squeezed her hand tightly and nodded. "Sometimes, I hate being stuck here while you guys go fight crime. It makes me worry all the time and I hate worrying."

Emily could only nod. Penelope had always been in the background, although all of them knew that they wouldn't be able to solve the cases without her at all, and that was what she preferred. Emily remembers one time when Penelope told her she sees enough blood and violence through the computer screens and they were more than enough to fill her quota.

For Emily, however, this was uncharted territories. Before she got pregnant, she rarely stayed behind unless the victim also had ties within the D.C. area. She was a field agent for a reason, after all. The waiting and the not-knowing if her team was safe was killing her, and her leg was bouncing in anxiety. She wonders how Penelope was able to function with all the uncertainty.

The phone rang. It was Dave telling Penelope that he sent her a sketch of a tattoo Tara saw on the motorcycle riders who took Luke and Matt. It was rough, so Penelope ran it through the tattoo recognition database.

"These copycat killings were most likely a ruse," he said.

"To target the FBI? The BAU?" Emily asked.

"It looks that way. Maybe even to target Luke and Matt specifically," Spencer explained. "Why else would they leave Tara behind?"

"Trust me, Emily. They copied a case we worked on before, sped up the timeline, and made sure and we were out in the open," Dave added. All of this was just to get their attention, and it worked.

"You're right. And as relieved as I am that they didn't kill Matt and Luke on the spot, it only means they've got worse plans for them," Emily said.

"The tattoo might help us identify the motorcycle riders who took them," Penelope said.

"Also, crosscheck it with cases Luke and Matt have worked together," Dave suggested.

"We're running the sketch as is, but we can't find any cases since Matt and Luke joined the BAU where it pops up," Penelope said, glaring at the red 'NO MATCHES' pop-up box on her computer screen.

"Are there cases where they put away any nefarious people that have escape or been paroled or anything like that?" JJ asked.

Emily watched Penelope click a few keys on her computer and sighed when nothing came up. "None."

"Luke used to work on the fugitive task force, and Matt was IRT. We should expand the search to before either one of them joined the BAU," Spencer suggested.

"Ok, we're o-n-i-t. And we will get back to you a-s-a-p," Penelope said and ended the call. She ran multiple programs to try and find even the tiniest connection between Luke and Matt. It took at least a half-hour for her to be able to find something. "I think I got something."

Emily immediately called Dave and put him on speaker. The second the line was connected, Penelope proceeded to tell the team about Louie Chaycon, the go-to enforcer for the Sarnicola family in Chicago. Matt wrote about him in a file, describing him as a 'brilliant, lethal, and criminally sophisticated' and likened him to the serial killer Israel Keyes. Like Keyes, after each hit, he'd leave America until any heat on him cooled down. Matt followed him to Europe when he was a member of the IRT, but somehow Chaycon found a way back to America, where Luke apprehended him back in 2012. He was sentenced to thirty years.

Chaycon was hiding out at his brother Bobby's house in Nettleton, Mississippi when Luke found him, and Bobby was eventually sentenced to ten years for harboring a dangerous fugitive. In 2017, Chaycon was extraditer to Italy, where he also faced murder charges and where he escaped custody. It was a lot but it didn't tell them why Chaycon was out for revenge.

Later, Penelope unearthed more intel about Chaycon's prison file before he was extradited to Italy. It turned out that he and his brother Bobby where on the wrong side of a gang fight while they were still in prison. Bobby was beaten to death right in front of him. Los Reyes even cut out the guy's tongue, which Spencer and Dave guessed was because they thought he was cooperating with the law enforcement.

"If that's the case, Chaycon probably blames Matt and Luke for his brother's death."

"Chaycon will want to do to them what the gang did to his brother."

"Garcia, do you have anything on the tattoo?"

"I-uh-I don't have anything yet, but I am holding on tight to my crime shovel and Emily and I will keep on digging."

Emily hung up the phone and noticed Penelope's hands shaking over the keyboard. The technical analyst was also committing a lot of typographical errors as she typed, something Emily had never witnessed her do. In fact, Penelope often called her out for the typos she had emitted in a file.

"Penelope," Emily said, softly at first, then repeating it in a louder voice when Penelope didn't seem to hear her. "Pen."

"I can't talk to you right now because if I stop doing whatever it is I'm doing, I might break down and cry and that would be lost time and we can't afford that right now."

"There is nothing more important to me right now than finding Luke and Matt but you have to take a deep breath too. If you keep going like that, you won't be able to find anything."

Penelope sniffled, turning to Emily with tears in her eyes and a trembling bottom lip. "We-we can't lose them, Em," she cried. "Matt has Kristy and his kids and he has a newborn. Kristy would be devastated. And-and Luke! He has—he has Lisa and, and Roxy and Lou and those dogs love him. Those dogs would die of loneliness before letting another person except Luke take care of them." She met Emily's eyes, which were as filled with tears as hers were, and shook her head. "I can't lose him," she whispered forlornly.

The admission would have sent Emily jumping in joy, but the scenario ignited an entirely different reaction. Instead of eagerly running to collect her winnings from the pool, she gave Penelope a soft, watery smile and wrapped her in a hug, as tight as her bump would allow her to. "I know," she whispered. "I know you can't."

"Emily, I need to find him."

"I know, and that's why I need you to take a deep breath, okay? Can you do that for me?" she asked. Penelope did as she said and took a deep breath, repeating it when Emily told her to.

"I'm good," she said.

"Alright. Let's get the boys home and put this son of a bitch in jail," Emily said firmly. Penelope took one last breath and nodded, turning back to her computers. It didn't take long for her to find something related to the tattoo. She didn't even get to utter a word to Emily before she reached over to dial Dave.

"I have a confirmation from a tattoo artist in Chi-town that that tattoo was specifically designed for a biker group loosely associated with an outlaw biker club known as the Rolling Devils. The Devils operate through the Midwestern United States," Penelope announced, moving her head so Emily could read her screen.

"Garcia, within our search area, do you know of any specific location controlled by the Rolling Devils?" JJ asked.

"No, but we're not looking for the Devils as in the outlaw bike group," Penelope said. "We're looking for a group of bikers that broke off with them because they were interest in devilier behavior, like slinging drugs as opposed to easy riding."

"I know a guy in the gang task force. He's got people embedded in that world. Let me see if he can give me something," Dave said.

"Thank you, Garcia," JJ said.

"You're welcome," the technical analyst whispered. She turned to Emily. "Was that enough?"

"That was more than enough, Garcia. Now, we wait," she responded, placing a hand on Penelope's shoulder.

They sat there for at least an hour, waiting for updates from anyone in the team. Spencer called thirty minutes later, telling them that Tara was okay and was on her way to the hospital. Emily gave strict orders to not let her in the field otherwise, which Spencer gladly agreed with. Another thirty minutes passed before Dave called, and from the sirens they could hear in the background, they knew it was urgent.

"Garcia, we need you to search the CCTV footage for men on motorcycles coming and going from a warehouse over the past few days," he demanded.

"Okay, I've got a foreclosed warehouse complex that fits your description. It's in your area. I'm sending the coordinates now."

"Thanks, Garcia."

Penelope's screens switched from databases to CCTV footages, and they watched as SUVs swarmed around the complex, sirens off. They watched as the rest of their team with SWAT backup entered the warehouse, temporarily disappearing from their view. Emily wanted to call Dave, to keep him on the phone so that they could hear what was happening, but didn't at the fear that the rings would get Chaycon's attention. He would kill Luke and Matt immediately at the sign that the FBI was at the same location. She couldn't risk it.

When they saw JJ and Dave walk out with Luke and Matt on their arms, they broke. They were holding it in the best they could, but the confirmation of two of their teammates being safe and alive pushed them over the edge. Penelope immediately stood up and enveloped Emily in a hug, one that Emily couldn't help but return.

Emily took a seat in her chair, running a hand down her bump. "That was quite a ride, wasn't it, my dear?"

She bit on her bottom lip as she recalled the words Tara said to her earlier: "I'm glad you stayed behind for this one." Emily agreed, and quickly distracted herself with the case, not wanting to linger on those thoughts anymore because she knew she wouldn't be much help in finding Matt and Luke if she did. But the adrenaline had worn off, and those dark thoughts had finally arrived. Questions of what ifs invaded her mind, and her wild imagination came up with multiple scenarios where she would've ended up losing her precious butterball. Unable to hold back the tears threatening to fall, she buried her face in one hand, the other still resting on top of her baby bump as she wept. She stayed like that for a short time, only straightening and wiping her tears away when she felt her baby move around inside her.

"I'm sorry," she sniffled, wiping under her eyes. "I'm okay. Mommy's just very emotional. You're going to see a lot of crying from me, I think. I haven't been able to control it so far since I found out I was having you. But that's okay. I get you in the end, and that's all that matters to me because I love you so much, and I am so so scared of losing you or of not being able to take care of you because I never really had a good role model for a mom, so I don't know how to be one. But I promise you this, my love: you'll always have me and your daddy. We both love you so much. And you have your aunts and uncles from the BAU team too, and you have Aunt Sandra and her family in Boston. You'd be surrounded by so much love that you probably don't know what to do with it."

Emily didn't notice the person standing by her doorway, listening intently as she talked to her baby. Andrew felt his heart break at the sight of his girlfriend crying, and wanted nothing but to hold her in his arms, but he could tell she needed to have that conversation with their daughter. Emily would let him talk to their baby all night long, so he would give her the space to do this, too.

"Okay, butterball, Mommy's done crying. We have to go out meet the team, make sure they're okay. And then we can go home to Daddy, and he can read to us again tonight."

Andrew knocked softly on the open door, smiling when Emily turned and met his gaze. "Hey."

"Hi," Emily sighed, looking both relieved and surprised to see him standing there. "Garcia called you."

"It was JJ, actually," Andrew said, smiling innocently.

"Oh. I was planning to call you, but I-I guess it slipped my mind," she bowed her head. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. What matters is that you found them," Andrew assured her, his eyes softening as he went behind her desk and sat on its edge. He took one of her hands and gave it a squeeze. "And that you and butterball are okay."

Emily squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed silently once more. She felt Andrew wrap her arms around her and she leaned her head against his shoulder, her voice muffled by tears and his chest when she asked, "Am I a bad mother?"

Andrew's hands stopped rubbing her back and she felt his body tense. "Why would you say that?"

"Because, Andrew, I keep putting her at risk." She pulled away from him and wiped her tears away with one hand. "I stayed behind for this case because the unsub was a copycat LDSK, and the original LDSK targeted the FBI office in Illinois after they got too close to finding out who it was. Even if I was out of the field, a sniper could easily target me, so I stayed home. But what happens if… if on my way to the coroner's office we get ambushed or a drunk driver or even just a lousy and inexperienced driver runs into us? There are too many variables out of my control and I could lose her, Andrew." He pulled her closer to him once more, leaning her forehead against his. "I'm scared. I'm just so scared and I don't want to be scared anymore."

"What do you want to do?" he asked softly. He had an opinion and if she asked for it, he would tell her, but the choice would ultimately be hers. He would never, ever, make her do something against her will.

She shrugged and took a shaky breath. "I didn't want to do it this soon, but I think I should avoid the travel altogether and stay here in Quantico until she's here."

"I think that's a good idea."

"You do?" she asked, skeptical of her decision.

"Yes. It's safer for both of you," he explained. Andrew was relieved. Emily planned to go on maternity leave when she reached thirty-five weeks, but he was worried about her travelling, even if she was out of the field the entire time. Like Emily said, there were too many factors out of their control, and if anything happened, there was a chance he could lose both Emily and their daughter, and that was the last thing he wanted to happen.

"I think so too," Emily sighed. "I'm just so mad at myself for not thinking it sooner."

"Hey, none of that," he said, placing kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, and a quick peck on her lips. "You're a fantastic mother."

"She's not even here yet, Andrew," she teased, trying to make light of the situation even though she was feeling anything but.

"That's true, and that just makes you more fantastic, you know why? You hate being out of the field, but you're doing it for her. You read her Kurt Vonnegut books, and even some fairytales because you love how she moves around. You can probably read an article about the economy and politics to her, and she'd still move around because she's hearing your voice," Andrew explained. "You are her entire world right now, and you're doing a fantastic job at showing her that there are a lot of people eagerly awaiting her arrival."

Emily had tears streaming down her face when he finished, and she tugged his face down to press her lips against his. "I love you," she mumbled when they pulled apart.

"I love you, too," he said, placing a kiss on her forehead. "I love you so much."

They pulled apart when they heard the famous ding of the elevators and watched through the windows of Emily's office as they entered the bullpen and head immediately to the conference room, all of them being led by Penelope. Emily couldn't help the smile on her face when she saw Penelope basically baby-ing the three injured members on her team, and every single one of them were resigned to let her do her thing or face her wrath.

When Emily entered the conference room, she immediately asked the three how they were doing and glared at them when they responded "Fine."

"That's my line, so I know none of you are actually fine," she said with an unamused smile on her face. "I'm glad you guys are alright, and I'm glad that you're safe. We all are."

"Does that mean─"

"No, Tara, it still means I'm ordering the three of you to take time off until the doctor clears you. A week, max," Emily said in a firm tone. When they began to argue, Emily sighed and put up a hand to silence them. "Humor me. Please."

"Alright," Matt sighed, although he wasn't really about to complain. Having a newborn baby at home with four more kids required all hands on deck for him and Kristy, and he was glad for the additional week.

"Good. The rest of you, I'll see you tomorrow," Emily said with a soft smile.

Happy 100+ reviews for this fanfic! And the lucky 100th reviewer (well, 101th, but the 100th reviewer is a guest user with no way for me to communicate with them) who gets to request a one-shot from me is Daisyangel! Feel free to PM me your request!