A/N: This is a complete rewrite of One Hour in Hell written years ago by kj.02-CM. This rewrite is written by both adalyn mae & KJ. More to come and we're so excited. Thanks to JJfanCM for beta-ing and please leave a review down below. :) peace and blessings my friends.
Chapter 1: Taken
Day 1.
Brutal.
Horrible.
They deserved a break, they needed a break. Their last case had pushed them all to their breaking points. In more ways than one, the BAU team members felt their desire to work diminishing. With each case that went cold, with each child that was harmed, and with each life they weren't able to save, the baggage grew heavier and more difficult to carry.
Even for Emily, someone known for her ability to compartmentalize so well. She was brought to her knees under the crippling weight of their failure as she realized they were too late this time.
Hotch remained silent yet the anger burned behind his eyes.
JJ had been reduced to tears. Harrowing, empty tears.
Reid simply walked away and didn't return until it was time to fly home.
Morgan screamed at a nearby police officer for his inadequacy, his feelings so horribly displaced he was reprimanded by Hotch.
Rossi brought out his phone to call…someone, anyone to tell them he loved them, only to place his phone right back in his pocket, his motivation evaporated when he couldn't find anyone to dial.
It was unfair.
Brutal.
And simply, horrible.
JJ clenched her jaw and opened her eyes as wide as possible. When they were open she didn't see images of dead children and other unimaginable scenes that would give the most graphic horror movie a run for its money. She didn't replay in her mind how the outcome could have been different if they would have gotten there just a few minutes earlier. She couldn't see those things and she couldn't think about them, dwelling so much would threaten her sanity. So even as she sat by her toilet, cradling the bowl while waiting for the inevitable next attack from her stomach, she forced her eyes to stay open.
Just like she had the entire night before.
It was her first night off since their last case. A case so dehumanizing and awful that Strauss had sent them all home for a mandatory two-week break. This was accompanied with a request that was more of a demand, to meet with the bureau's psychologist if they wanted to be reinstated at the end of those two weeks.
JJ wanted to give up. Emotionally she was fried. Physically her body was exhausted. Mentally she…she couldn't stop being furious with herself. She was better than this. Whatever her performance was that she called her job- it had been pathetic and unacceptable.
She always worked so hard to not only save the people around her but to also save herself from the deafening effects of inadequacy. That's what she was, inadequate. And no one had been shy enough to keep that information to themselves.
People would lie to her, people like Hotch. They'd tell her she was doing a good job, that the outcome wasn't her fault, that she had done her best. But it didn't matter. JJ couldn't recall one time her own mother had told her that she was proud of her, or even that she was simply enough. This affected her so much that it ate away at her to no end. No amount of praise from others would ever make her feel valued in the way she craved to be.
Sandy Jareau said she loved her daughter unconditionally, but they both knew conditions existed, and they were hefty and unbearable. Especially after Ros died.
JJ should have been able to let it go. She should have been able to work hard and live a normal life simply because that's what she wanted. But she couldn't help but hear the disapproving words from her mother echoing in her ears after each searing failure.
JJ's face drained and her feet began to tingle from the lack of movement. She knew there was more waiting to be expelled from her stomach. The emotions and sickness trapped just below the surface were bubbling for the chance to escape. JJ couldn't remember the last time she had felt so overwhelmed by both a trivial case and her own deep-seated trauma.
She shook away the thoughts, keeping her eyes wide open.
The bathroom door crept open, but JJ didn't bother to look over her shoulder. Morgan had been so attentive to her for the last 48 hours, that she was beginning to fall in love all over again. It was the type of love that she craved, that she desired so desperately, but that she also reminded herself she wasn't worthy of.
A hand caressed the back of her neck, pulling all of her hair off her back and to one side of her face. The hand moved slowly with a gentle stroke as fingertips traced the outline of her spaghetti strap tank top along her shoulders and down her back. She fell back into the embrace and reached her fingers up to her shoulder to cup the hand waiting patiently there.
JJ gently turned her head to look back with a grateful smile.
Immediately she opened her mouth to scream, but the same hand that had been touching her so softly, came down across her mouth, hard.
"Don't scream, unless you want Derek to die."
Derek sat comfortably on the couch, he wore loose basketball shorts and a fitted t-shirt. He gazed at the TV before him, not really taking in anything that was being said. His gaze was far beyond that, locked on the mirror just above their TV.
In the reflection he saw a white man holding JJ in a painful headlock, his other hand pressed tightly across her mouth as she whimpered. Her mascara was smeared and Derek hadn't seen that look of fear in her eyes in a long time.
He jumped startled from his spot on the couch and spun around to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him.
They weren't.
He slowly raised his hands, knowing full well he was at an incredible disadvantage. He didn't have his gun and an intruder was holding JJ's life in between his hands.
"What do you want, man? Money? I can get you whatever you want." Morgan began, his tone even and controlled.
"Money could never get me what I want." The man spat while tightening his grip around JJ's throat.
"Then what do you want?" Morgan tried again. Each time he spoke he took a careful step forward.
"You." He responded with a sneer as he opened his hand to reveal a syringe touching the base of JJ's neck. He pushed the needle in and Morgan watched helplessly as JJ fell limply to the floor.
He tried to keep his eyes focused on the man in front of him, but JJ's lifeless body on the floor was incredibly distracting.
In an instant, Morgan and the attacker, both lunged for each other. Morgan narrowly missed a punch aimed at his head and returned the motion with a right hook into the man's gut. His abdomen was solid, his arms were equally the size of Morgan's and even though he had missed that first strike, he managed to get Morgan right where he wanted him in some sort of jiu-jitsu move. He breathed heavily while holding Morgan tightly against the floor.
The man was trained, he was strong, and in a matter of moments, he had managed to incapacitate two federal agents.
As he held Morgan to the ground, he pulled out another syringe and pushed it slowly into Morgan's neck, watching as he fought for consciousness.
"Sweet dreams."
People can grow strong enough to merely whisper at the iron bars that hold them and then see them bend out of their way, like the most crazy magic. That's what love and resilience can do: fix souls, fix brains, save us all.
You wish you could have mastered that way, but it's hard when you've been starving for so long. You can sit and call for help. You can act like there is no cage, physical or mental, you can wear a mask of coping and normality.
You can rage against the bars.
However, there is another escape route, yet it is one led into another great pain. This route proves that It is possible to be so emotionally starved and destroyed that you slip through the bars, no longer bound but with your soul crumbling.
Dissociated.
Detached.
Digressed.
What follows is an endless emotional marathon on bleeding knees and cracked lips. You learned how to hide the pain, how to look normal.
You learned to survive. For the most part.
You understand why some go cold inside to escape the pain of isolation and utter torture, why they let their empathy wither and die: numbness over feeling, mental anesthesia. You refuse. The thing is, regardless of the pain, you believe that living with an incomplete soul is a form of death, and you'd rather be a humane human in pain than a zombie needing to bite others to feed.
At least this is what you used to believe.
But you've seen people change. And you used to believe that even amongst the worst situations people can and would come together. But not now.
This is all worse than you ever could have imagined. At this point, God alone is the only one that can save you and those you love from the depths of despair you'd reach. And suddenly this man has broken you further than you can comprehend and you know you'll either die or betray those you love because now… the zombie sounds better than the torture.