"Ian, you can't do this!"

"Seems to me, I can, Love." He was entirely too calm in his anger, almost as if he'd been planning for this eventuality. (She supposed that wouldn't be too surprising – she knew the kind of man he was, afterall.)

Emily had gone home with Ian after meeting him at the Black Shamrock which – she now supposed – hadn't been the greatest plan, given that she'd just told him news he hadn't wanted to hear. He'd made her a cup of tea that – she now realized – had been drugged. And when she'd woken up, she'd found herself chained to his bed.

She tugged on the chain keeping her prisoner, testing its strength, though she knew it wouldn't give. "You can't keep me here," she hissed, furious – more with herself for having let herself get into this situation in the first place. "Someone will notice I'm gone and come looking for me."

"I've no intention of keeping you locked up forever," he informed her, stroking her cheek almost tenderly. "How long depends entirely on you." She lifted a brow in question, but maintained her scowl. "When you see reason and agree to keep the baby, we can be a family."

"You think you're selling me on the idea of raising a child with you?" she asked incredulously.

"I didn't want to do this, Love, but I had no choice," he said, unamused by her defiance.

She batted his hand away. "Go to Hell, Ian!" she snapped.

His sweet smile vanished. "Do not test me, Love. I could just as easily kill you once this baby is born..."

"Fuck you," she spat, "You're a psychopath – I don't know why I ever loved you!"

"That's just the hormones talking," he assured her, condescension dripping from his voice. "Nine months is plenty of time for you to see reason." Then, he walked out, slamming the door behind him.

"What makes you think the girl's been kidnapped, Alex?" Rossi asked.

When Emily didn't show up for class the that day, Alex was mildly concerned. When she failed to show up for office hours or hand in her latest assignment, her mild concern ratcheted up to extreme. Emily was far too responsible to not even send an email.

Perhaps she was overreacting, but after her last class of the day, she drove over to Emily's apartment hoping she'd just been extremely ill, but fearing the worst.

After lying to the building super, telling him that Emily was her niece and she wasn't answering her phone, she was inside a suspiciously empty apartment. Heart sinking, she made a phone call...

She had remained close with Rossi after she'd left the BAU and when she'd called, saying one of her students had gone missing, he'd been willing to humour her at least – even if he wasn't entirely sure there was cause for alarm, he trusted Alex's judgement enough to look at the case.

"I know she has," Alex insisted. "I know everyone says this, but she wouldn't have just ran away." It was clear from his expression that he remained unconvinced, but she continued on undeterred, "She's suggested to me that the man she's been seeing may be violent and he wasn't happy she wanted to give their baby up for adoption."

"What do you know about him?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not much. I think she was afraid of him – she said he wasn't a good man."

He nodded, returned to his cursory glance around the apartment. He paused on a framed photo of Emily with an older man, his arm wrapped around her shoulder, exposing a distinctive tattoo on his wrist, brow instantly creasing with concern. "We may have a problem..."

Alex felt her heart pound somewhere in her throat.

Ian returned with a tray laden with breakfast – toast, fruit, juice, and prenatal vitamins – and set it on Emily's lap. He reached out to stroke her hair, still tender with her, even in her captivity. Swallowing her pride, she looked up at him with the sweetest smile she could muster. "I'm sorry about earlier," she murmured. "I didn't mean the horrible things I said."

"I know, Love."

She reached up to clasp his hand, kissing his knuckles softly. "Can you take off the shackles?" she asked. "I have no intention of going anywhere. You know that, right? I'm right where I want to be – with you."

"I'm afraid I can't do that." He pulled his hand away, shaking his head patronizingly.

"Ian..." she begged, "I'm no threat to you or this baby. I want this baby."

"Just not with me. You've made that very clear." His eyes were frosting over and she knew her chance of winning him over was quickly disappearing.

"Please, Ian..." she begged, "Let me go and we can talk about this."

He leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "You'll stay there until I'm convinced you're not going anywhere."

Rossi called in the BAU who, in turn, called in Interpol.

"How did you get caught up in this mess?" Clyde Easter asked with a pitying shake of his head. He passed Alex a cup of coffee, leaning against the wall outside the bullpen next to her.

Alex took the mug for something to do with her hands, her head still reeling with the knowledge that Emily had somehow gotten mixed up with an internationally wanted terrorist. "I offered to adopt the baby at the centre of this whole mess," she remarked dryly, starting to wonder if this wasn't the universe's way of laughing at her.

Clyde apparently had no response to that.

In the ensuing silence, she asked, "Is he going to kill her?" He opened his mouth to reassure her, but she shook her head. "Don't patronize me with platitudes. What does his profile say?"

"Ian Doyle is a very dangerous man," he admitted, paused to consider his words. "He's a power-assertive psychopath; he's serious about what he does and he doesn't play games. He's unpredictable and has an explosive temper – if she sets him off, he could very well hurt her. But I think so long as she's pregnant, he's unlikely to kill her if he wants the baby that badly."

"That's not at all reassuring."

"She's managed to stay alive for this long," he pointed out. "She's done what seasoned agents couldn't – we've sent in trained undercover operatives that haven't made it two weeks before he discovered them. You just have to believe she'll hang on a little while longer."

Alex eyed him suspiciously for a moment. "You're planning to offer her a job, aren't you?"

"She's already better than half my team – imagine what she could do with a little training..."

Alex shook her head. She wanted better for Emily, wanted more for her...