"Lotus –" He starts, and it's all Jane can do then and there not to vomit.

Adrenaline, which threw her head first into the room, is still pounding in her ears – but she is suddenly acutely aware that she just jumped head first into her worst nightmare with no parachute.

But Rin –

"Don't call me that," She says – or tries to say, because her voice doesn't work. She clears her throat, trying again. Imagining Rin was there, right behind her – supporting her, holding her hand. "Don't call me that. That's not my name."

"Of course it is," McCrae laughs lightly, and it sends shivers down her spine. "Lotus, I always knew you'd come back to me – I've missed you."

"Yeah, well, I can't say the same," Jane spits back, squaring her shoulders and hoping her hands aren't shaking. The phantom feeling of Rin's hand on the small of her back is holding her up – keeping her strong. "You killed my family. You killed Bree. You killed my dad."

She can hear movement – voices – on the other side of the door, but no one enters. She's not sure if she's thankful or not.

"Arthur deserved it," He spits, his anger flipping like a switch she didn't remember remembering. He snarls, his entire face transforming with the ugly expression. "He kept you from me!"

"Me?" Jane arched an eyebrow, a hand coming up to her chest – mocking Him with balls she didn't know she had. It was terrifying and invigorating and paralyzing. "Me? You mean my grandmother? Or Elizabeth? Or Ada – you only went after me because I was the only one left!"

"That's not true – it was always about you!" McCrae switched back, going soft – gentle. What He tried to pass for love and affection, sloppy in the lines of his face. Even if she didn't know what kind of monster He really was, she wouldn't've been fooled. He stepped closer, hand extended – as if she would take it. Expecting her to take it. "We were going to be a family, Lotus – but that bitch Liber took you from me and we lost each other."

"That bitch was my mother," Jane shook her head slowly, fingernails digging into her palms. "And you killed her too."

"She took you –"

"I took myself!" Jane yelled – and it felt good to not be afraid. To scream. "I never loved you! I could never even stand you – the moment you locked me up I started carving away at my cage. You didn't even notice, you were so deluded. I broke myself out – Desi had nothing to do with it!"

"You're lying," He snarled. And before she can blink he's lunging for her, yanking and straining against his cuffs. "She stole you. You would never –"

"My baby was never yours, it was Danny's," Jane pressed, knowing that for the first time she had the power. "I never loved you, I loved Danny. And you killed him."

"And now I'm going to kill Agent Hotchner," McCrae smiled widely, ferrally. "I've killed him already, because he's got hours to live. You're a doctor, aren't you, Jane? You know how long a human adult male can go without sustenance. You'll never find him – he's already dead."

"Like hell."

"He's going to die all alone," McCrae practically sang, sick sadistic pleasure radiating from every pore. "Agent Hotchner is laying on your bed, blood staining the sheets as he looks up at the bare ceiling – when the sun goes down it's going to get dark, and he'll be so weak he won't be able to warm himself, only shiver in the freezing room. And when he dies, his body will wither and rot until there's nothing left, only the filthy bones of a filthy man."

"Where is he?" Jane slammed her hands on the table, shouting in his face. "Tell me where he is!"

He lets out a wordless roar, curling with bloodlust, and with a crack – that she recognizes as the sound of snapping bone – he wrenches his arm free. She barely has time to recognize His broken thumb when His hands are around her neck and He lunges over the table – she hits the floor, hard. All her air is forced out, and she can't get any back because His hands are around her throat –

Any surety, any confidence, she had rushes out of her in an instant, and all she can feel is terror.

The door bursts open, Rossi and Morgan and JJ rushing in to get Him off her, but He's gone berserk with rage and is shouting –

"– I was so good to you!" He howled, spit hitting her in the cheek as He squeezed. "I did all of this for you. We were meant to be together – we were going home! I won't let you be with him, I won't."

Morgan kicked at Him, once, twice. When that and the gun in Rossi's hand didn't work he wrapped his arms in a chokehold around His throat. He still held on.

Jane tried desperately to pry His hands off of her – and as stars danced in her vision, she felt the skin along his forearm where his jacket had been pushed up and his cuff came loose. Her palms registered rough skin, inflamed skin – pustules burst under her grip and the faint smell of urushiol hit her nose.

She pushed up His sleeve, strained against His hold on her neck.

Poison sumac.

His hold slackened, enough for JJ to pull her free, fussing over her –

But her mind was racing.


"What the hell were you thinking?" Morgan was yelling at her, looming over her as JJ gently pressed an ice pack to her neck. "You knew how dangerous he was – you know more than anyone. You could've been killed!"

She held up her hand, gesturing for a pen – something to write with.

"And you!" Morgan directed his anger at Reid and Rossi. "Both of you! Why didn't you let me in there, huh? I could've stopped him before he got his hands around her neck!"

Rossi shot something back, and Reid began to ramble, and the rest of the team was watching the fight and doing nothing to stop them and no one was looking at her!

She gestured for a pen again. Nothing. To JJ – nothing, the blonde woman was pulling aside her collar to examine her neck further.

Fine.

Jane looked around for the largest thing she could throw without consequences …

Computer, Garcia's mug, a laptop, a tablet, a couple pens –

There.

With a gentle push, she moves JJ aside so she can stand and grab one of Rossi's hardcover novels. Winding up above her head, she brings it down as hard as she can onto the round table top.

The echoing slam is satisfying as all eyes land on her.

She gestures for a pen. Mutely, Spinner hands her a marker and gestures to the board.

'He said "your bed".'

She looked around. Saw no one got it.

'When he was taunting me, he said Hotch would die in my bed,' She clarified, underlining 'my bed' three times.

"Not your bed at your house or Hotch's," Reid caught on first, as usual. "Your home in Michigan?"

Jane shook her head, writing quickly.

'I remember bits. The room, the cold at sunset. I remember that,' She wrote quickly. 'When I escaped from where he was keeping me I got rashes all over my legs – He had those same rashes on his arms. Poison sumac.'

"Poison sumac is considerably rarer than it's cousin poison ivy," Reid's eyes widened. "Garcia, pull up all the places on the list that are located in the range where poison sumac grows – along the border from Wisconsin, down the East Coast, then south towards Louisiana."

"On it," The Tech Analyst slid behind her laptop, already started. "Give me more – I'll need more."

"Jane, anything else," Rossi turned to her. "You said you escaped. Do you remember anything?"

'I don't remember much,' Jane shook her head. 'I'm sorry – I can try?'

"Not yet," Blake bit her lip thoughtfully. "McCrae was shouting when he attacked you – he said 'we were going home'."

"Home can't be one of his primary addresses, we checked those," Morgan shook his head. "Maybe West Virginia? Where he and Arthur grew up?"

'Too far.'

"Too far from what?" Reid asked, tilting his head.

'I ended up in Abbeville, Alabama,' Jane wrote reluctantly – intellectually knowing that being open would save Hotch, but still unwilling to share where she had stayed with Them. 'WV is too far.'

"Do you know how long you traveled?" JJ asked. "What direction? By foot or bus or car?"

'Memory cut out – by foot, until Desi found me. By car for a bit. After, I escaped into the woods. 2 days? Maybe 3?'

"So how far could she make it in that time …?" Reid mused, looking over the map, eyes flickering in thought.

"Home," Blake tapped rhythmically at the table. "Home. Home –"

She looked up sharply.

"Where was he born?" She asked Garcia, lips pursed. "Where was McCrae born?"

"He was born in Biloxi, Mississippi … " Garcia answered after a quick moment. "But he moved to Fairhope, Alabama, and lived there till he was eight. They moved to West Virginia when his mother up and left them."

"Returning to the place he lived and loved before he was abandoned the first time," JJ nodded.

"Jane could have traveled that distance, and it's right in the zone where poison sumac grows," Reid announced. "Garcia?"

"Omigod. OMIGOD! There's an address! From the list!" She exclaimed, their phones chiming as she sent the info. "Right there in Fairhope – go go go!"


They're on the jet, and Jane forces herself to switch mentalities.

Hotch is going to need medical attention – Hotch is going to need a doctor. Not a girlfriend, not a best friend, not a co-parent – a doctor.

So she's going to have to be one.

She sorts through her kit, prepping shots of nutrients and IV drips and banana bags. She brings out gauze and bandages, sedatives and analgesics. Anything and everything she might need to save Hotch's life.

The team watches her silently.

She wonders if her methodical precision scares or reassures them.

She doesn't dwell on it.

She spends two hours out of the flight checking and rechecking her supplies meticulously. With twenty minutes left, she readies a syringe and stands, crossing to the jet's bathroom.

"Jane," Morgan calls to her warily, standing to follow her path. "What are you doing? What –?"

He cuts himself off sharply as she jabs the shot into her neck and depresses the plunger.

When the pain hits, the needle falls from her grip – wrenching out of her neck and hitting the ground. Morgan's there in an instant, pulling her out of the bathroom and holding her upright against the wall as she suppresses her screams. Her hands locked around Morgan's biceps and his hands on her are the only things keeping her from passing out – points of contact she focuses on, controlling her breathing.

" – oc. Doc! What did you take," Morgan is shaking her, trying to catch her eye. "Doc, what did you take?"

"Cor–" She coughs, agony still rippling through her neck. She coughs again, struggling to breathe. "Cortisol."

"Why the hell would you take that?" Morgan demands, leading her to the nearest seat, JJ getting out of their way.

Jane just shakes her head, cradling her throat with a wary hand.

"To reduce the inflammation," Reid supplied in the tense silence. "Cortisol injected directly to injured tissue can reduce inflammation, though it is painful and doesn't come without its dangers. The swelling in your neck – you want to be able to talk to Hotch once you see him, don't you? If he's still … conscious … "

He trails off. They all know what he was really going to say.

She nods.

"Dammit, Jane," Morgan sighs wearily, crouching in front of her and scrubbing a hand over his face. "Maybe a heads up next time?"

She shrugged, unrepentant – still coughing.

And then they were landing.


"Elton McCrae, Jr.?" A deep voice sounded from Elton's right, but he didn't bother acknowledging the guard or agent or medic or whoever it was. Didn't matter – he had bigger things to worry about.

Hotchner had hours left, if that. He needed to plan for when his Lotus eventually came running back to him when her precious Aaron kicked the bucket.

"McCrae?" The voice came again, harsher – impatient. He still didn't look up. "I'm to transport you to Federal."

"Well, my good man, you may have your job to do but I certainly can't help you with it," Elton adjusted his tie, forcing the movement even as his thumb cried out in pain. "I won't go easy."

"Oh, I'm counting on it."

Self preservation kicks in – something in the voice.

Elton looks up, immediately recognizes the face – the dreadlocks and the coarse stubble, even if the uniform is foreign on the broad frame.

Andrew Jael raised a small remote in his hand, hitting the button – fire alarms started blaring.

"Now then," He pulled a baton from his belt – flicking it open with a vicious smirk. "I have a message from my brother, Danny Vite: don't mess with his girl."


"Are you going to be able to do this?" Blake asks her as they hurtle down the highway towards the house she was imprisoned and tortured in. Towards where Hotch was dying. "We called EMTs, you're not going to be the only one with training there."

"I have to," She croaks, saving her voice.

"No, no you don't," Morgan corrects her, soft but firm. "You shouldn't –"

"I will," She stops him with a look.

They arrive too late and in a flash. Morgan and JJ lead the charge, Blake and Rossi close behind as Reid covers her flank – a clever excuse for eyes on her.

Space bends. They're –

They clear the top floors, and descend into the basement.

She'd been here before.

"Door's locked," Morgan declares, voice strained. "I can see Hotch."

No one stops her as she presses to the front – and she barely registers that the door is obviously a new addition after her escape before –

Her eyes lock on Hotch and all other thoughts leave her head.

He's unconscious, and emaciated. But she can see his chest rise and fall –

"– over 100,000 combinations," Reid is saying, examining the panel, the keypad. "It will take days to guess every combination."

They don't have that kind of time.

Someone – Morgan? – suggests shooting it out, but Jane takes a step back, tilts her head. She feels the bars, running her hands down them and –

She begins to strip.

"Jane, what–?" JJ blinks, juggling her gun and the satchel she shoved into her arms. Her jacket soon follows.

"These bars were sized for a grown adult or animal – I'm short and small," She declares, shimmying off her hoodie – anything that will add bulk. "Back up."

Good thing she hasn't been eating well the past week.

They comply, and she sits on the cold concrete and begins feeding her feet through – twisting so they were stacked and so that she and her toes were facing the door jam. Her hips make it past with an uncomfortable squeeze, but soon she's shimmying her shoulders through – gripping the bars to keep from face planting. With a final twist, she supports herself on her shins to pivot and duck her head past.

She sits back with a huff, looks back at her startled team, and gestures for JJ to give her the bag.

When she's got a firm grip, she promptly ignores everyone and everything that isn't Hotch – the last thing she registers being Rossi calling out Garcia's name, demanding to know if she could get the door open.

Jane Hart rips her satchel open as she kneels over Aaron Hotchner, and she gets to work.


Awareness doesn't return with a slow trickle of senses, like it usually does. For Hotch, awareness flicks back on like a lightswitch, sudden and sharp and –

He locks eyes on Rossi, and he wonders if it's another hallucination.

Dave's smirking, a deeply satisfied expression that neatly slots over the worry he can read in his body language. He shifts in his seat, slowly leaning forward and telegraphing clearly as he rests a reassuring hand on Hotch's arm.

"... Is this real?" He hesitates to ask, voice sore from disuse.

"Yes," Rossi nods, a smile playing at his lips. "Yes, it is."

"Blake?" Hotch asks, remembering the woman's too-still form beside him. "Is she –"

"She's fine – we all are," Rossi's face twisted. "Only Strauss …"

Right.

Other stimuli are registering now, and Hotch catalogues them one by one. The soreness in his back, the fog in his head, the pinch in his arm, the IV feeding into his vein, the tug at his stomach – feeding tube?

"The Unsub is dead."

Hotch returns his attention to Rossi with a jolt, his emotions a hurricane mixing in his gut.

"His name was Elton McCrae, Jr., and he knew Arthur since they were kids, going to college together later in life," Rossi continued. "His obsession shifted – from Lotus Ryden to Elizabeth Colemyer to Adaline Ryden. When Elizabeth killed Ada that day to spare her from McCrae, the only one left was Jane. That's why he went after her."

"How did he die?" Hotch asks, a distant and dark part of him pissed he couldn't do it himself. "Who killed him?"

"He was in our custody – Morgan got him after he killed another 'ally,' a man named Johan Meadowes. Jane's old friend Andy snuck in as a guard, using Vine to help cover his tracks," Rossi reported, a tinge of cruel satisfaction in his own gaze. "He was beaten to death – he went slow and he went hard."

Good.

"You were kept for nearly eleven days – we found you just in time," Rossi gestured to the hospital bed grandly. "You've got the best care money can buy, and have been unconscious since we recovered you three days ago. Malnutrition was our primary concern, but those cuts on your back were infected, which certainly didn't help matters."

"Jack?"

"He's been staying with Jessica for the most part, but he's with good Dr. Hart now," Rossi cocked an eyebrow, knowing what he wasn't asking. "Jack has a science fair project that he didn't get to work on last week, so they're making a day out of cramming it all in. Reid offered to help, which would've been … interesting, but the two of them wanted some alone time."

"... She's okay?" He hesitates to ask.

"No, she is not okay," Dave deadpans, shaking his head slightly. "When our interrogation failed and it looked like we weren't going to get anything out of McCrae, she went in on her own. She got what we needed to find you, but he managed to get free of his cuffs and wrap his hands around her throat."

He cursed viciously, wincing as the exclamation pulled at his feeding tube.

"She's fine, but between that and the EMDR she did to get McCrae's identity to begin with …" Rossi ignored his continuous swearing. "She's still reeling. She's gonna need you, to get through this all."

"I'll be there," He swore, and he meant it.

Aaron let himself bask for a moment. Bask in the presence of a friend, in the hustle and bustle of the hospital. In the pain in his back that meant he was alive. In the knowledge that Jack and Jane were safe.

"I'm going to let everyone know that you're awake," Rossi stood lazily, about to step out into the hall. "I'm sure they'll all rush over as soon as they hear."

"Be sure to tell them not to drop everything they're doing," Hotch jokes, sure that his team will do just that. "Tell them I'm fine."

"Will do – and by the way," Rossi faux remembered breezily, digging into his blazer pockets. "You might need this."

He dropped a very familiar velvet box onto his lap. Hotch reached over to pick it up on reflex.

"You've been carrying that around for the better part of a year," Rossi teased, one foot out the door. "About time you man up – no time like the present."

And he slid the door shut behind him.