"Daddy!" Jack calls out, and Emily and Aaron both sit up instantly. Sergio's meowing from between them. As Emily's vision focuses, she notices first Jack's frightened expression and then the person who has a tight hold on his pajama shirt.
"Go over to mommy and daddy," he says, shoving Jack at the bed. Emily and Aaron both extend their arms to keep him from falling hard onto the couch. They help him up between them on the couch, and Aaron pulls him close.
"You can have whatever you want from me, Ian. Leave them alone," Emily says as she slides over to sit on the edge of the couch directly in front of Jack.
"Quite the beautiful family you have. What is it? Oh, yes, Emily."
"You can have me however you want. Just leave them alone," she says, fiercely. Her heart's racing and her head's pounding, but she still maintains her composure.
"Oh, no, Emily Prentiss. They're in this already. They have been since I saw you coming to hang out over here, even before you moved in," Ian Doyle says. The gun in his hand is by his side. His three men, including Fahey, stand around the room with guns pointed at their heads.
"You've had your spies on me for a while now," Emily says while trying not to get mad at herself for letting the warning signs go unnoticed by her.
"What is your plan, Doyle?" Aaron says then after taking a few moments and his prior knowledge to gain some idea of his profile.
Ian turns his head to him suddenly, having not looked at him since they broke into the apartment and found Emily and Aaron asleep on the couch in one another's embrace. His face twists, and Aaron hates what it must have been like for Emily to be with this monster. "Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, do you not have a profile of me yet?"
"Not a full one, no," Aaron responds.
To break the angry glare between the men, Emily repeats, "What is your plan, Ian? What are you going to do?"
"Make you pay for what you did," Ian says, walking to them quickly and yanking Emily from the couch by her hair so she lands hard on her knees in front of Ian. Aaron winces at the sound, but Emily has no such reaction. Aaron instantly moves in front of his son.
"Okay. But they aren't involved," Emily says with her voice still strong despite the searing pain in her head from his constant pull on her hair. Sergio runs to her aid pawing around where she kneels.
"Being involved with you means that they're involved in this," Ian says with each word pulling more tightly at her hair, lifting her up from the ground. She bites so harshly into her tongue that she tastes her blood to keep from yelling out and alarming Jack more than he already is.
Her tries are for not when Jack cries out, "Don't hurt her!" Aaron pushes him firmly back behind him to keep him from looking between his arm and his side as he had done. It's too late now though because Ian's full attention has turned to the boy, letting go of Emily so that she falls hard on the ground.
Ian lifts the gun as he walks slowly around the couch. Aaron tries to block his line of sight, but he can't fully encircle him. "Close your eyes, Jack," Emily says as one of Ian's men locks her hands in cuffs behind her back.
Ian looks at her with a twisted face and truly angry eyes. He lowers his gun against the sweet boy's tender head and soft blonde curls. Aaron stares at it angrily with a want to disarm him greater than he can process, but there is just enough sense in his mind to know that will lead to all of their deaths, and his intent isn't to kill Jack now. It would be too sudden a pain for Emily. He will want to drag it out if only a little longer. He hopes that to be the case, at least. "Is that what you told Declan? To close his eyes?"
"No," Emily answers quickly.
"Not with his eyes open?" Doyle asks, the fear in his voice almost made her feel sorry. Almost.
"No. He closed them all on his own. He wanted to impress me," Emily says, successfully taunting Ian back to her. The gun presses against her forehead, and she stares up at Ian beyond the weapon. "He listened to me. Trusted me."
"You? Emily Prentiss? Or Lauren Reynolds?" Ian asks.
"Emily," she answers, pushing herself up on her knees and pressing her forehead more into the barrel of the gun. She has all of his attention now thankfully. "Everything I did, I did as Emily Prentiss. Lauren Reynolds was an alias that I had to suffer through for a job that I hated."
"My son trusted you, and you killed him," Ian hisses.
"Yes," she answers in a firm, fierce whisper.
"How could you go on to just spend time with a child so similar to my boy?" Ian asks.
"Call it nostalgia," she answers flippantly, trying to keep Ian's attention away from them.
"You have nostalgia for taking care of Declan. Do you have nostalgia for killing him as well?" he asks. Barely a moment of insufferable silence passes before he speaks again, "Don't you worry, Special Agent Prentiss, I will make sure you feel that nostalgia again."
"Come on, Ian…" Emily stands up while the gun stays pressing into her skin, her shaking legs making her unstable on her feet. "They did nothing to you. I am here. You can do whatever you want to me. They aren't in this."
Ian shakes his head disapprovingly. "Keep this up and I will make this much more painful for them. Much slower," he says. Emily bites down painfully on her bottom lip, and she doesn't say anything more. Ian makes a nod of his head, and two of his men come to grab each of Emily's arm, pulling her back towards the door. The other man points his gun to Hotch's head as they back out of the room.
Her eyes hold his as they simultaneously realize it will not be a gunshot now for their death. A single wire sticks out from the doorframe as Emily passes beneath it. "I'm sorry, Hotch," she calls out to him. "Listen to me… listen ," she finishes, nodding her head up at the wire as she moves into the hallway and the door closes behind them.
In the apartment, there is a split second between the door closing and Jack's wail. In that time, he hears it: a single click. A completed circuit. When his son has time to cry, he knows they have time to survive. "I need you to grab my phone, Jack, and Sergio too" Aaron saws an authoritarian voice he never takes with his son. Jack gets it immediately from the coffee table before picking up Sergio even as he whimpers. "Piggyback ride, now" he tells his son then.
"But Emmy…" Jack cries out.
"Jack, please. This is for Emmy," Aaron tell him son. Jack climbs onto his back, holding tightly to the phone and Sergio, and Aaron stands up with difficulty. Taking large and fast strides, they reach the bathroom and the clawfoot bathtub in seconds. Aaron has his son lay down first in the tub clutching to the cat and climbs in next pulling the shower curtain down off them with a sharp tug. Aaron's hands are still cuffed, so he tells his son, "Push 2." Jack so smart as Emily said herself does precisely that, and on the first ring, Rossi answers.
Rossi answers drowsily, "Aaron, it's the middle of the—"
"We need a bomb squad, fire department, and ambulances to my apartment. A man name Ian Doyle abducted Emily. She had gone undercover to capture him when she worked for JTF-12 before she came to us. He thinks she killed his son. She didn't. There's bombs in our apartment that could go off at anytime. Get JJ to get you all the information you need. Find her, Rossi. Save her," Aaron's voice cracks as he says it. He stares down at his son who looks fearfully up at him. "Close your eyes. I just wish Jack could see the world." Aaron takes a deep breath, a dark feeling in his chest growing. He takes a breath, letting the phone that is still on fall to their sides as he pulls his son into a tight hug. "I love you, Jack."
A whimpering voice of a boy much too young for this says, "I love you, Da—" An explosion followed by a dead call leaves Rossi with tears in his eyes. The only sound in his silent room is his own gasp.