Sorry that it's been so long again between updates. Hope you enjoy this one though.


Nothing changed.
No time passed.
Yet, the entire world had changed.

Rosie's hand didn't still, even for a fraction of a moment, continually stroking her daughters hair – serving the dual purpose of both keeping Melissa calm (although considering they were being held hostage at gunpoint by some absolute madman, losing her calm seemed a fairly rational course for any nine year old little girl to take) and herself calm, the gesture reminding Rosie that Melissa was still here, was still okay, that nothing had happened to her – and her clear eyes never left the small silver piece of metal, nor the man holding it in his slippery grip.

The silence was stifling, but it was better than the sound of gun fire, the sound of which she personally never wanted to hear, ever again.
But then, the silence was broken – a sharp ring; one, two three times, and eight pairs of eyes (the seven hostages and the mad man) turned swiftly to look at the source of the noise.

The telephone.

It was fairly bland and green plastic, which had previously been stood idly besides the till, and had remained unnoticed until this point.
Not that it could remain ignored any longer.

The man walked quickly over to the telephone, his steps just light enough to be avoid being the footsteps a teenager in a temper tantrum would take.
Lifting the receiver, he pressed it to his ear.
"Who is this?" He demanded, his voice tense, he had no delusions about the fact that unless he was extremely lucky, this encounter would likely end in his death, in one way or another – and it was all that bitch of an ex-wife's fault.

For close to twenty seconds he stood motionless, with his gun pointed at the hostages although Rosie was somewhat (ashamedly) thankful that it seemed to point more towards the two business men, than herself and her daughter.

"Get rid of the SWAT, and maybe we can talk," the man spoke, and (from looking at the sickly pallor of his face) clearly with more confidence than he felt.

Rosie didn't know what the voice (which, from the faint undecipherable snippets she could hear, she guessed was male) on the other end of the line was saying, but from the way his face screwed up in anger and his finger twitched against the trigger of his gun (causing the hostages to try and force their way through the wall, they were pressed up against it so fiercely) – she could easily guess that it wasn't good news, for him at least.

She wasn't sure if she should be pleased or not by that fact.

But when he all but threw the phone onto the counter top, allowing it to bounce and fall off the fake marble work surface, and stormed with a terrifying expression over to the hostages, Rosie knew she definitely shouldn't be pleased by something that annoyed him, especially when he had the power to kill all of them.

His eyes glanced over all the hostages, before settling on Melissa, he grabbed her hair, yanking her upwards from her mother's grip – a cry of pain following unbidden from her lips, as new tears formed in her eyes.

Rosie didn't even think, she just lunged towards the madman, almost unaware of his gun, until he swung it around and pointed it so the barrel rested almost perfectly between her eyes.

"Move and I shoot you all." He growled – his face serious.

He didn't move the gun away from the six hostages, as he pushed the small girl towards to the door.

And Rosie didn't move, not because the gun was pointed at her, but because it wasn't pointed at her daughter.

Not a single one of the other hostages moved either, though whether that was because of his words, sheer fear, or the fact that they were grateful he hadn't taken them was debatable.


Randy pulled the small girl, whose name he didn't know, and didn't care to, towards the door, not liking something, although he wasn't sure if it was the fact that she was close to tears, or that he was causing them.

He didn't like to hurt little girls.

But this was a necessity.

Jolting to a sudden stop in front of the beige coloured wooden door, he silently gestured towards the door with his gun, his second hand not leaving her hair.

She couldn't unlock it fast enough, even with shaking fingers, and jagged breath.

Finally it clicked, the door unlocked, and she pushed it open outwards, disappearing from his grasp almost before it was a quarter open.

She didn't even look backwards.

The door shut with a clatter, no one there to soften the noise, and he clicked it to lock again, before heading towards the phone once more.

Picking up the object from where it hung, only a few centimetres from the floor, he held it to his ear, before speaking to the man who called himself "David".

"I let a hostage go. Now get rid of SWAT. Now!" His voice almost barked by the end of the short sentence before slamming the receiver back onto the proper resting place – Randy didn't want any of them to listen in to what was happening inside the room, even if nothing noise worthy was actually happening.

Breathing steadily to try and calm himself down – to shoot each of the hostages dead might calm him down for the rest of his life – but it would be a life that only lasted about ten seconds longer.

If that.

In the corner of his eye he saw the red headed woman that had been holding the little girl so tightly, close her eyes and breathe a silent sigh of relief.

He wished he could do the same.


The sun beat down weakly above Melissa's head, but (compared to the near darkness of the last few hours with the coffee shop) it made the small girl squint, but still she could just make out the large black coloured vehicles with the words FBI emblazoned across the side in yellow.

Daddy works with the FBI, the small girl thought, as she headed towards the line of vehicles, Maybe they can find him and get him to come here. He'll be able to sort this entire mess out in no time what so ever, because he's daddy, and he can do anything.

A slight smile graced her lips, even as she stumbled over a curb she didn't see and a pretty lady with long blonde hair and a bullet proof vest came out to lead her behind the row of big black cars.

As soon as they were "safe" (out of the way where the scary man would be able to shoot them Lissa assumed she meant), the pretty lady bent down to Melissa's level, which wasn't too low down, for even if she was a bit small for her age, she was still nine, and therefore, practically a lady already.

"Hi," she said, her tone friendly, which caused Lissa to smile in return, even as she drew into herself slightly. "My name's Jennifer. What's yours?"

She opened her mouth, "Melis..." her eyes drifted over to the crowd of agents only a few metres to their left, spotting someone very familiar.

Her eyes widened as she yelled, "Daddy!" whilst running directly towards the large group of agents.

Directly towards ... Reid.


Thank you for reading, and please review (I'd like to get six for this chapter - to take my total up to a nice round 30)

Mia