Lydia grabbed her stuff for work. She had a shift at 9 AM and then a meeting with her professor soon after. In a month, she'd graduate and earn her PhD. It was sort of unbelievable.

And to add to the unbelievable, Spencer was doing insanely better. Two months clean and he was already more emotionally sound and happy. If pride was a physical entity, her's would be able to fly for him.

Throwing her phone into a purse, she swung the door open and made it one step out the door before she was forcibly sent back in.

It took her several moments to register what was happening. She noticed the man's blue button down much faster than she registered his face. Felt his hand gripping her shoulder. Smelled his sweat. There was a prick in her neck.

And then her body went numb. She fell to the floor like a ragdoll, the only thing she could move were her eyes. It was horrifying. She could feel her heart rate skyrocket as she tried to do something.

And then he stood over her, letting her get a good look at his face.

Frank. The psychopath from Nevada. He'd come back for her.

Spencer walked the streets outside Gideon's apartment with Morgan and Prentiss. They'd gotten a call late that evening that a murder had taken place in Gideon's apartment and they needed to go to the scene for questioning.

Almost immediately the team recognized the MO. Ketamine, evisceration, and the removal of a rib bone. They weren't on the case. It belonged to Maryland PD. But they weren't about to let Frank get away with this.

"We know Frank will do whatever it takes to blend in and not stand out," Emily was saying as Spencer approached her and Morgan from down the block.

"Well, to avoid attracting attention he would have simply walked calmly out of that crime scene," Morgan reasoned.

"The evisceration of Sarah, though, means he would have been soaked in her blood," Reid argued.

"No," Emily huffed. "He had access to Gideon's closet. He cleans up, gets a change of clothes, he's out."

Morgan shook his head. "Yet he left no trace of evidence at the crime scene."

They all jumped as Hotch spoke up, appearing in their circle out of nowhere. He was carrying a plastic grocery bag, tied shut. "Gideon said he dumped it en route."

"You spoke with Gideon?" Emily asked. "Well, that's all the proof we need, right? We can turn him over to the MPD now."

"By the time this comes back from the lab, Frank's long gone."

"If the cops find out we're hiding evidence and a material witness from them-" Morgan tried to argue, but Hotch was set.

"We're not hiding evidence. We'll give this to forensics, let them search for DNA. We'll look for Frank."

A kid suddenly approached them, kicking his skateboard up into his hand when he had their attention. "Agent Morgan?"

"What the hell?" Emily whispered.

"They say beauty can cover a multitude of sins," the boy recited. "While underneath it all, we all look exactly the same."

Morgan looked around the street wildly. "That's Frank. He said that to me in the diner."

"Give me Jane, or I'll kill them all. Including your precious Lydia."

Spencer's eyes widened. "Lydia. Oh god. She was the one who conducted his interview. If he's targeting us in order to find Jane, she's on his list, too."

"Why does he think we have Jane?" Morgan demanded.

Spencer was already dialing Lydia's number, listening to the phone ring. Pick up. Pick up.

"Hi, this is Lydia Ambers. Sorry that I missed you-"

"Lydia's not answering her cell," he fretted.

"Of course not. She hasn't answered any of us in months," Morgan said.

Hotch sighed, frustrated. "We need to locate Jane and Lydia. Soon."

"I'll go to Lydia's apartment," Spencer insisted, walking off before anyone could argue or ask how he knew where it was.

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Frank had covered her mouth and bound her hands in case she came out from underneath the influence of the ketamine during the drive.

He'd laid her out in the backseat, so she was left to stare up at the ceiling of the car and listen. She didn't know where he was taking her. Didn't know what he wanted. And she couldn't alert anyone of her predicament. Unless Spencer decided to stop by soon, no one would know she had disappeared.

"You're quite lucky, Lydia." She was repulsed just by the sound of his voice. Pretending not to be intimidated by him the first time they met was enough to leave her disgusted for days. "I would have just killed you, but I fear it wouldn't have been very satisfying. You aren't afraid of me like the others."

He still thought she was a psychopath. It had saved her so far, but there was no way she could keep up this unfeeling act long enough to survive. She was terrified of him.

"Your team will come after you, I'm sure of it, Lydia. But until then, I need to prove just how serious I am."

She didn't feel the car come to a stop, but Frank got out, leaving her there, in her impaired state. She wished more than anything that that was a bad plan, but frankly, she was stiff as a plank of wood. She wasn't going anywhere.

Spencer rushed into the conference room, out of breath after practically running all the way from Lydia's apartment.

"Lydia's apartment door was open and her purse and phone were left in the doorway," he sputtered to the team.

Hotch nodded sternly. "We don't think he plans to kill Lydia yet. It sounds like he's going after people we've saved from past cases."

"I've got nine possible targets," Emily explained as she walked in with a handful of files. "Their contact details are in their files. Everybody grab a phone, let's start calling."

Spencer did his best to help, but his mind was a mess. Frank had Lydia. Frank had Lydia.

She must be so scared. He couldn't even fathom the idea that he could lose her. No, Lydia wouldn't let him kill her. She was too spiteful for that. She just had to hold on a little longer.

"Rebecca Bryant?" JJ was saying over the central speakerphone in the room. "Hi, this is Jennifer Jareau with the FBI."

"He's not Agent Gideon, is he?" Her voice was a timid whisper on the other side of the line. Frank had to be there with her.

The whole room stopped, waiting to see how this played out.

"Rebecca, this is Agent Hotchner. If you can, very calmly excuse yourself and get out of the house. Can you do that?"

There was silence.

"Rebecca," JJ tried again, "just calmly hang up, walk to your door, and leave, okay? Rebecca?"

"What's going on?" she demanded.

There was a small gasp over the line. JJ and Hotch called her name, but there was silence. And then…

"I regret to inform you that Rebecca's name should be moved to a new list."

"Frank, we don't have her," Hotch tried to reason. "We do not have Jane."

"I will not stop until I have her back… I would imagine Lydia says hello, though she hasn't said much at all since I paid her a visit."

"Frank… Frank!"

He was gone.

By the time Lydia had gotten feeling back in her limbs, Frank had her arms tied to the clothing hanger inside of a closet, her feet bound to the floor. She didn't know where she was. It was hard to judge the amount of time she was in the car, although it seemed to be light out when he carried her into the building.

It was an apartment. Why on Earth had he taken her to an apartment? Who did it belong to?

He removed the duct tape from her mouth and she spit in his face. "What the hell do you want, Frank?" she demanded.

"I want my Jane back. I figured if Agent Gideon wanted to take something of mine, I would take something of his."

Lydia pulled desperately at the restraints around her hands, but they were painfully tight. "I don't know where Jane is, Frank. I don't work for the FBI anymore. I haven't talked to Gideon in months."

"You're a liar," he said, calmly. "I know that Jason will come for you. And he'll give up Jane, just like you did for all those kids. If you don't believe me, why don't we ask him?"

Frank pulled out a cell phone, putting it on speaker for her to listen.

"Hello?" Surprisingly, it was Hotch's voice on the other end.

"Agent Hotchner," Frank greeted. "I need to speak with Agent Gideon. Could you patch me through to him?"

"What do you want, Frank?"

"I have someone who'd like to talk to him."

Frank looked at her expectantly and although she didn't like the idea of doing what he wanted, she needed Hotch to know about her involvement in the case. "It's Lydia, Hotch. He took me from my apartment this morning."

There was a moment of silence. "We know, Lydia. We're going to find you, don't worry."

"Jason," Frank ordered. "Now."

"Keep holding on, Lydia," Hotch told her, before patching them through to Gideon.

"Yeah?" her old mentor's voice asked.

This time, Frank didn't say anything, just held the phone up to Lydia for her to speak.

"Gideon? It's Lydia. Don't worry about me. Keep working the case. If Jane ran away, we can't just give her up. I'm going to be fine."

"Lydia, where are you?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I was in the car for hours, but I couldn't see anything. I have no reference point."

"Okay… okay, everything's going to be alright."

"I know," she assured him. "Worry about you."

Before he could respond, Frank took the phone off speaker and put it against his own ear.

"Jason… Shh, Jason. I chose the station because I know how much you love trains. I saw the toys in your apartment."

Suddenly, he shut the phone, covered her mouth once more with the tape and shut the door, effectively locking her into the dark closet.

Hotch sent Spencer and JJ to Manhattan to find Mary Breitkopf and search her apartment. It frustrated Spencer to no end. He did everything he could not to think about Lydia, but it felt like the whole team cared more about catching Frank than saving her.

Except for Gideon. Hotch had made it clear not to tell Gideon, because he feared it would cloud his judgement. And if what Hotch told them about Gideon's talk with her over the phone was true, it had. Gideon was vengeful.

The manager of the building guided Spencer and JJ to Mary Breitkopf's apartment. He explained that in the whole time he'd been working there, he'd never actually seen her, but she paid her rent on time every month. As he walked, he tossed the keys back and forth in his hands.

"It's right this way."

They had three officers following them, guns at the ready.

"Woah, hey," JJ stopped him before they reached the door. "No matter what happens this time, we don't split up, clear?"

It took him a moment to remember that the last time it had been the two of them on a case, Tobias Hankel had taken him. He nodded quickly. "Crystal clear."

Once the door was open, the two agents had their guns at the ready, leading the search into the apartment.

The place felt old. There was dust on everything. The living area/kitchen was empty, so they moved onto another door, presumably leading to a bedroom.

JJ pushed it open, doing a quick sweep of the room, but it was far too dark to be sure. Spencer stepped up to a covered window, pulling the curtain away and seeing JJ flinch in his peripheral vision.

He turned around and came face to face with a body, laid out on the bed. The remains were mummified, surrounded by dead flowers. Dead for years, at least. The hands were laid across the chest, as if in peaceful rest.

The two of them could have stayed there forever, staring at the horrifying corpse, but were startled once more by a rustling sound. A closet was locked shut to their right and something was definitely moving inside.

Once more armed, JJ and Spencer approached the door. He opened it for her, having her aim at whatever they found inside, her gun almost smacking Lydia right across the face.

"Oh my god, Lydia," JJ sighed, putting her weapon down at once.

Lydia's dark hair was a rats nest over her face. Her whole body weight was hanging on the coat hanger she was tied to. Her eyes were heavy as she rolled her head back to look at them, her body convulsing as she tried to gasp through her duct taped mouth.

Spencer just looked at her, relief filling his body to see her alive. He wanted to pull her into a hug, but JJ was preventing him both physically and socially.

"I'm going to rip the tape off now," JJ warned her.

Lydia nodded and shut her eyes tightly in preparation. Still, the sound of it ripping away from cheek to cheek was painful, as well as seeing the red, irritated skin afterwards. "Son of a bitch," she said, panting heavily. "Can someone cut me down?"

JJ pulled out a pocket knife, starting at her feet.

"H- How are you feeling?" Spencer asked cautiously. They hadn't needed to fake around anyone in a while. It felt weird to him.

"My body feels like lead," she grumbled, her voice hoarse. "And the sunlight is killing my head. But I'll live."

"Spencer, call for an EMT. She's probably still got some ketamine in her system. We don't know how much he used on her."

Spencer hesitated, but eventually stepped away from them to follow her instructions. JJ then moved onto Lydia's hands.

"I don't think I can stand on my own," Lydia warned her as she felt the restraints on her hands loosen.

"I don't think you're that heavy," JJ laughed. "You can lean on me."

She nodded and as one hand slipped free, she threw it over JJ's shoulder, trying to hold herself up as the other arm slipped free.

The two girl's stayed there for a moment, Lydia's arms wrapped around JJ's neck. She chuckled tiredly into JJ's shoulder. "Thanks for saving my ass. Didn't think we'd meet again like this."

"You had a lot of people scared," JJ admitted. "When you fell off the grid… the first time that is, we figured something big must have happened."

"I'm sorry that I didn't say more… Goodbyes are hard for me."

JJ helped her out of the closet and Lydia shrieked.

"Oh, dear lord, there's a body in here!"

JJ chuckled, continuing to walk her into the living room. "You've seen worse, Lydia."

"Yeah, but I was in the same general room as a dead body for hours," she argued. "It isn't exactly pleasant."

"Well, we're going to take you down stairs and hopefully get you checked out by an EMT, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

After getting cleared by the medic, Lydia leaned against the side of one of the cop cars outside. She was regaining most of her strength and wanted to go back to her apartment and get this day over with.

"How are you feeling?" Spencer asked, stepping up next to her. He didn't lean in too close. JJ was distractedly speaking on the phone, but she could still turn at any moment and see them.

"I'm fine, Spence," she answered. "I'm frustrated that now I have to call my boss and professor and tell them that I didn't make it because I was kidnapped."

"Seems like a reasonable excuse," he teased, but he clearly did not find the situation funny. "Lydia, you don't have to be okay. You pretended all day not to be scared of Frank. No one expects you to skip back to your apartment."

"It's draining," she admitted. "And I'm really craving ice cream. But I wasn't as tormented as you might think. Frank, he didn't want to kill me. I was his bargaining chip all along. I knew that so long as I waited him out, you guys would find me."

He nodded. "We'll definitely go get ice cream in celebration."

"You and I get kidnapped and drugged way too often," she laughed. "This is starting to look like a pattern."

"Lydia?"

She raised an eyebrow at JJ, who was holding out her phone. "Hotch wants to speak with you."

Lydia took in a large breath, biting down on the inside of her cheek. Yikes. Not counting their brief interaction with Frank, she hadn't talked to Hotch since her resignation. "Hotch?"

"Lydia. It's good to hear you're doing better."

"What happened to Frank?"

"Suicide. He and Jane jumped in front of a train."

"Shit," Lydia mumbled. "Poor Jane."

"She hasn't been in her right mind for some time now. There wasn't much we could do."

"Still. No one deserves that…" She waited for him to drop the formalities and get to the point, but he just stayed silent. "Did you have something you wanted to say to me?"

"I thought Gideon might want to know you're okay. He doesn't have his cell on him, so he couldn't call you directly."

"Okay. Put him on, I guess."

Hotch explained that he was on his way, but warned her to be gentle with him. There was some shuffling before Gideon spoke. "Hello?"

"Hey. Thanks for not letting me die."

"Thanks for not dying," he chuckled, tiredly. "I wouldn't have had the strength to tell your family that I got you killed."

"You didn't get me killed," she argued. "Or, if I had been killed, it wouldn't have been your fault. You worry about yourself for now."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I think I'll do that."

Lydia gave JJ back her phone, then turned on Spencer. "There's something you aren't telling me. Gideon's grief is through the roof. Did Frank kill someone we know?"

Spencer hesitated. "Frank killed two people. One of Gideon's old college friends and Rebecca Bryant."

"Rebecca Bryant?" Lydia paused, trying to place the name. "I… Fisher King's Rebecca Bryant?"

"He got a list of people we've saved on past cases. He got to her before we could."

"Oh god," Lydia breathed. "That poor, poor girl. She'd lived through so much as it is."

Spencer nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. "You don't miss the job, do you?"

"After today?" she asked. "Definitely not."

She'd been kidnapped. Drugged. Driven to New York. Left in a closet with a dead corpse outside. And in the end, they didn't catch the bad guy and three innocent women were killed. Why would she miss this job?

At least, those were going to be her arguments in case Spencer asked her about it. But in all honesty… she'd lied.

"Thank you, Lydia," Hotch said as she finished giving him her statement for the events that had transpired. "It was nice… to see you again."

"Not under these circumstances, it wasn't," she grumbled. "But believe me, I've missed you guys like hell."

"Well then, why did you leave?"

She rolled her eyes. "I was a full time grad student, working for the FBI, dealing with a mother who had a stroke, and I thought… one of these stressors had to go."

He chuckled. "I'm going to be honest with you. You had Frank convinced that you were a psychopath, so I know you're a good actor. You can come up with a better lie than that. Why don't you?"

Lydia brushed her hair out of her face and stood up. "I don't have anything to prove to you," she admitted. "You can assume whatever you want about why I left. I love you guys a lot, but in the end, it wasn't enough to keep me here. I'm sorry about that."

"I'm sorry, too," he replied, softly. "Please… Please keep in touch. We were all really worried about you, Lydia. That is, before the kidnapping."

"I'll be better." She tried to play it off, but she did feel guilty for leaving them. All of them. When JJ told her she had to go back to the office, she flipped. Seeing the whole team again was terrifying. And she knew they were out there, waiting. "Now that I think about it, though. I might not be alive to call you in a week."

"Why's that?"

She just nodded her head to the door and stepped outside.

"Lydia Ambers!" Garcia shrieked immediately. "Do you know how stressed I was to find out you had resigned, effective immediately, with no notice? Do you know how many times I called your cell and left messages trying to find out if you were okay?! You better have been in a coma, missy!"

Before Lydia could apologize, she was enveloped in a hug.

"I missed you too, Spice," she whispered.

Emily was right behind Penelope, also giving her a hug. "I'm glad to see you're okay. When Spencer said you had been taken by Frank, I-"

"I don't want to know what you thought," Lydia admitted. "I'm okay now."

"Well?" Morgan demanded. "Out with it. Where the hell have you been?"

Lydia blinked at him, as all eyes turned on her, expectantly. "I was… at home. Working and stuff."

He scoffed at her. "Excuse me? People don't just-"

"Morgan," she interrupted. "Not right now, okay?"

She'd hoped he might see her unease and relax, but he shook his head and stormed off.

She deserved it. She'd gotten his messages. He was truly concerned for her. Refusing him an explanation wasn't fair to him. But to say that she had chosen her family over them seemed… unreasonable. She couldn't explain it.