Jacoby Fitzgerald had always been clever, and in spite of his recent reckless ways, he still knew that sooner or later, he was going to get caught for what he had been doing. That being said, he also knew that when he got caught, it would more than likely be with Boris and the others, and unlike Jacoby, they would rather go out via suicide by cop. Jacoby was not about that. He would rather go to jail for life before being shot to death by a cop.
So... after a difficult night of sleeping, he finally made up his mind about what he was going to do.
The next morning found Derek released from the hospital with his arm in a sling and sitting in one of the chairs at the main table in the conference room at the station-house that the BAU had been using since their arrival. For obvious reasons, he wouldn't being doing any fieldwork for awhile, but he was happy to contribute to helping narrow down the field to the most probable areas that Jacoby had to have hidden Emily and the girls.
JJ was in a chair beside him, also aiding in the effort. She didn't have orders that weren't exceedingly strict like Derek's, but she agreed to Hotch's request to stick to the station-house for the day. She didn't mind. Though JJ was an FBI agent like her colleagues, she wasn't a profiler and had had enough excitement in the field for awhile. The office was more her speed.
"Excuse me, agents."
JJ, Derek, Penelope, Rossi, Spencer and Hotch each looked up to see the head of the precinct, a Captain Bartoli, standing just inside the door.
Hotch stood first. "Yes, Captain Bartoli?"
"Jacoby Fitzgerald has just turned himself in."
JJ and her companions all experienced a sudden record scratch moment and turned to Hotch, wanting to know what he was going to say. Agent Hotchner was taken aback by the sudden development, but he kept his cool.
"He turned himself in?" he echoed. "Voluntarily?"
Captain Bartoli nodded. "Yes, and he's willing to talk, but on two conditions."
"He's hardly in a position to bargain!" Spencer blurted.
"That may be true," Hotch agreed. "But something prompted this change of heart, Reid, so whatever Jacoby's conditions are, they probably aren't outrageous at all."
Spencer didn't see a flaw in Hotch's reasoning, so he just nodded and watched his boss pose a new query to the captain.
"What does Jacoby want?"
"The first condition is that he'll do jail time for any long length of time, but not for life."
"Well, that's for the lawyers to decide, but it doesn't sound unreasonable because of how cooperative he's being. What's the second condition?"
"He won't speak to anyone but Agent Jareau."
"No." Hotch said immediately. "We'll figure something else out."
Using help from Spencer because he was the nearest to her, JJ stood and marched over to Hotch.
"This could be our only real chance before something happens, like Emily and the girls getting split up, or God forbid, sold! Are you really going to risk that, especially when there's a lot of ground to cover in the 'places they could be' category?"
Hotch raised an eyebrow. "JJ, I'd like to think that I shouldn't have to remind you why this is a bad idea where you are concerned."
JJ put her hands to her middle, where she could feel her daughters kicking and nudging her. "We're all fine, and I'll even take someone with me."
"Jacoby sounds pretty firm about the 'only you' part."
"I can make him focus on me, and we both know it."
Small and petite though JJ stood, even without taking things to a sexual aspect, she really could make people stop and listen to her. It had a lot to do with her calming voice and magnetic gaze. That, coupled with her being a crackshot with guns, made her a force to be reckoned with.
She was also not a person to have a battle of the wills with.
Hotch remembered this he caved and sighed as he turned back to Bartoli. "Is Jacoby cuffed to the table?"
"Yes. He even agreed to that."
Hotch eyed JJ again. "We will be watching from the other side of the glass, but go ahead and pick your person."
"Dave. I pick Dave."
It was Derek who was usually JJ's go-to backup muscle, but in this case, Rossi was her best bet because of his older, fatherlike appearance. He was very gentle most of the time, but when it came down to it, he could get even the scariest of unsubs freaked out without breaking a sweat. Getting Jacoby to talk was going to be a piece of cake.
This proved to be the case when they entered the interrogation room because Jacoby was immediately derailed when he saw Rossi.
"Hey!" he protested to JJ. "Who's the old guy?"
"Who? Agent Rossi?" JJ asked causally as the man in question stood next to the door and watched them, pretending to look only mildly interested. "He's my colleague, and he's going to be hanging out while you and I chat."
"But..."
Jacoby was going to further his protesting, but then his eyes fell on JJ as she walked towards him, but more specifically, on her big middle.
"You're pregnant." he said blankly.
"Yes, I am." JJ made a show of easing herself into the chair on the other side of the table. "Is that a dealbreaker?"
Jacoby shook his head, but remembering Emily getting smacked around, he was even more ready to cooperate. "N-no, but that must mean you've got some kind of special connection with Agent Prentiss."
JJ leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. "Talk to me about her and the others."
"Will I get the other half of my deal?"
"Start talking. Now."
Jacoby William Fitzgerald sang like a canary.
Like Sloan and Sasha had suggested, the abandoned hardware store was in Hell's Kitchen, and even on the same block as a library. In a show of good faith, Jacoby even had on him all the keys to their hideout that went to the locks on all of the storage spaces and other cupboards were all of the drugs and guns were being kept. JJ realized that Jacoby could have been lying about all of it, including his claim that the locks that the keys went to were each locked, but she took him at his word and took notes on everything he told her.
The next hoop to jump through, however, was getting Emily and the girls out of the basement.
The solution for that was Hotch leading a charge with Rossi, Spencer, Captain Bartoli, and her best detectives. JJ and the others waited from the safety of the mobile command center parked near the hardware store.
Of course, Boris and his cronies realized that they'd been sold out by Jacoby, but they went nuts when they found out that he'd locked up all of their assets.
They took their anger out on Emily, despite their promise not to touch her anymore, and before long, she was even more pain, bleeding from a cut on her cheek and pleading for her own life, as well as the life of the child in her womb and those of the scared children in the basement who she now knew she'd move mountains for.
Emily was perilously close to breaking—she had already been crying off and on for hours and had even accepted that she'd be needing her own rehabilitation after this—but the thought of seeing JJ again, and also feeling the twins kick, turn, and stretch under her touch as they liked to kept her from falling apart altogether.
Then the rescue happened, although it sounded more like an invasion at first.
"Quick, babies—hide in here!"
Emily held open the bathroom door as loud voices and gunfire could be heard overhead. The girls had all the trust in the world in their new friend and that she would keep on protecting them, so they all hurried in. Emily closed the door behind the last person and sat on the floor, leaning her back against the wall behind her. Despite her battered body and expectant condition, she was still an FBI agent and protecting innocent people, no matter their age, was part of the job.
"Emily," Rada clamored. "What about you?"
"There isn't any room for me."
The bathroom was a tight fit, as it was, and if she wasn't pregnant, she would have been able to squeeze in, but only just.
"Emelia, I'm scared; I accidentally wet myself and Anya!" Polly squeaked suddenly. "I'm really sorry!"
"There isn't anything to be sorry for." Emily told her. "Is anyone holding you?"
"I am." Tatiana called.
"Good. That's good." Emily told her, her heart quickening and her baby kicking away as she heard the noise upstairs come to an abrupt halt, followed by heavy-sounding footsteps coming down the stairs. "I need all of you to be so quiet—like mice—until I say so, and remember that no matter what, I love all of you very much."
They all agreed and fell quiet as Emily began to hope and pray that they weren't about to meet a certain doom.
But they weren't.
"Emily?"
It was Rossi; he was at the door. "In here!"
"Hang on!" he called. "I'm here with Hotch and Reid, and they're undoing this lock with bolt cutters!"
Emily suddenly became aware of how beaten and bruised she was, and that her clothes were even torn in some places, but she didn't care because help was just on the other side of that door.
Next thing she knew, the lock was off the door and her friends were walking towards her, each happy to see her, but nonetheless cautious.
Rossi reached her first and when he saw that she was afraid and shivering, he took off his jacket and offered it to her. Even though Rossi was being kind, Emily flinched badly.
"Would you like to warm up, Emily?"
She nodded and as he helped her put the garment on, she said, "Sorry I jumped."
"You don't have to apologize for anything because you've been through quite an ordeal."
Hotch squatted beside them as Emily leaned against Rossi for support.
"Emily," he said gently. "You hid the kids behind that door, didn't you?"
She nodded. "I had to protect them, just in case things went worse. What happened?"
Spencer knelt beside Hotch. "They've all been arrested, and they're never, ever getting out of jail now. How about you talk to the girls for a second so I don't freak them out when I open the door?"
Agreeing that this was a good idea, Emily reached over and knocked gently on the door. "Everything is good now, babies! My friends are here; the ones I told you about, and my friend Spencer, he's going to open the door for you, alright?"
They all conveyed understanding, and when Spencer opened the door, the girls piled out and heeding Emily's injuries, they showered her with affection. It wasn't until Polly wiggled her way on to her lap, though, and whispered her thanks in her friend's ear and gave her a peck on the cheek that Emily experienced an adrenaline crash and finally let herself cry.
About fifteen minutes later, JJ was outside and sitting on the bumper of one of the many ambulances that had been called to the scene. Once things had been deemed safe, they were all allowed to leave the mobile command center and while Penelope and Derek set off to offer help the best they could, all JJ could think about was Emily and the others.
She wouldn't lie that her heart skipped a beat when she saw a pair of paramedics enter the building, a stretcher between them, just as the first group of paramedics exited with the girls.
Where the hell was Emily?
"Agent Jareau?"
The paramedic who drove the ambulance was talking to her, so she stood and turned to him.
"Yes?"
"Will you give me your hand?" he held his own out. "My partner just radioed that he's on his way here with one of the girls, and that it's all hands on deck to look after him until they get to the hospital."
JJ agreed and let him help her up. Just as she got settled, the paramedic's partner arrived, carrying one of the girls. She was wrapped up in an emergency heat blanket, but JJ could still see her shivering.
"This is Polly, but she told me you can call her Appolinariya." the second paramedic told JJ when he was on board. "Agent Prentiss told me to give her to you, specifically. Will you look after her until she's with her family again?"
JJ held her arms out for the girl without hesitation. "Of course!"
Polly was dirty—JJ almost wanted to gag because she was pretty sure that the little one was reeking of dried urine—and she bleeding from a cut on her arm that looked like it needed stitches, but she also kept yawning and rubbing her eyes. At the moment, all she needed was to be held and shown love.
JJ felt her heart filling with to the top from the very emotion the second the paramedic deposited Polly into her lap. The little girl even smiled when JJ kissed her on the top of her head.
"Are you Emelia's love?" she asked JJ.
"Yes, I am, sweet Appolinariya." JJ responded, quite tickled that she'd used Emily's real name. "I'm glad to meet you."
"What's the realer name that you belong to?"
"Jennifer."
Polly grinned and closed her eyes as she snuggled closer and held tightly to JJ's shirt for security.
"Emelia will be so happy to see you, Jennifer."
Polly fell asleep after that.
