Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the TV series, Criminal Minds.

Full Circle
Part 6

By N. J. Borba

Derek drank down the last drop of orange juice and rinsed his glass out in the sink. After all the coffee he'd downed the day before, he decided to start off with something a little tamer for his Tuesday morning; a natural-sugar rush rather than a caffeine fix. A glance at his watch revealed that it was just after 9am, which meant he was running a little late. He'd stayed up well past midnight, hoping to hear back from Emily, but she hadn't called. Derek tried to reason that maybe she'd thought he'd be asleep, but in the back of his mind he feared she was still too angry to even speak to him.

When his cell rang just as he was about to exit the apartment, Derek noticed that it was Emily's number. "Hello," he answered, trying not to sound overly eager.

"Mr. Morgan? My name is Silvia Bowen. You don't know me, but..."

"You're Emily's neighbor," he recalled. "What's wrong?" Derek's heart had begun to race the second she stated her name. "Did something happen to Beth? Is Emily there? Can I talk to her?"

"Emily's the reason I'm calling," she replied with a nervous tremble. "I agreed to watch Beth last night and Emily said she wouldn't be late, but I ended up putting Beth to bed and she still wasn't home. I tried to contact her but the phone kept going to voicemail. I eventually fell asleep on her sofa and didn't wake up until just a short time ago. I figured Emily got in late and didn't wish to wake me, but I checked to be sure she was here before leaving and..."

"She's not?" Derek guessed.

"No," the woman confirmed. "I don't think her bed was slept in and her car isn't here. I called again but only got the message. I also tried to get a hold of her parents. Emily told me they're traveling right now, but I left messages for them to call me back in case they might know something. Then I noticed your number by the phone. I know you're Beth's father, so I called you. I wasn't sure what else to do."

He took a shallow breath as worry for his daughter resurfaced. "Where is Beth?"

"She's here, sleeping soundly. I checked on her a few minutes ago, after I went to Emily's room. But, Mr. Morgan, it's just after five in the morning here and I'm certain Emily never came home. I'm very worried. This isn't like her at all."

Morgan could hear that concern loud and clear. "Listen carefully, I want you to stay in the house. Make sure all the doors and windows are locked."

"Are we in danger?"

Derek wasn't sure what to say, but hoped to keep her calm. "I don't think so," he replied. "Right now, I just really need you to stay with Beth at the house. Don't open the door for anyone unless it's Emily. Don't even answer the phone unless you recognize the caller. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'm going to get back to you as soon as possible, okay?"

"All right," she agreed. "Thank you."

The call ended and Morgan's heart slowed down just a little to know that Beth was okay. But losing Emily was not an option. Not after he'd just found her again. He hit the number one speed dial button on his cell and dashed out the front door. Derek sped down the stairwell, skipping entire steps all together. "Garcia," he greeted the analyst briefly when she answered. "I need you to check Seattle area hospitals for any record of a patient named Emily Stewart."

"Oh God, why?"

Derek burst through the door to his parking garage and ran to his car. He jumped in to the vehicle, stared it up and roared out of the main gate. All the while he heard Garcia still trying to ask him about what was going on. "Emily's missing," he finally reported, with no further detail. "I also need you to run a search for this license plate: five, five, five, delta, echo, bravo," he recalled the sequence he'd seen on Emily's car. "Did you get that?"

"Yes, of course, but wha..."

"And I need you to have JJ gather the team ASAP. I'm going to be there in about twenty minutes, maybe less," he ended the call abruptly after that and stomped down on his gas peddle, turning a corner much too quickly. Derek let out a shaky breath and slowed the SUV a little as he realized he wasn't going to be any help to Emily or his daughter if he was dead. As he pulled on to the highway, Morgan made another call.

xxx

The team was fully assembled when Morgan arrived in one piece. And he'd barely stepped in to the BAU room when Garcia came rushing in on his heels. She shoved a brown file folder in his hands. "The license plate number you gave me came up in a report of an abandoned car; 2008 dark-blue Subaru Outback. It was found just after midnight in a parking lot in Everett, Washington, which is about..."

"Twenty-eight miles north of Seattle," Reid finished.

"Would someone mind backing up a few steps here," Hotch looked to Garcia and then Derek. "What is this all about?"

Derek offered the file to his boss. "This is Emily's car. She's been missing since last night."

Hotch quickly glanced over the vehicle registration information and Garcia's abandoned car report, which looked to be copied from an online police log. "Emily Stewart?"

"That's the name she's using now, legally..." Derek shook his head, not carrying about names at the moment. "Hotch, we need to get to Seattle. Emily's already been missing for almost twelve hours. Anything could have happened to her by now."

The Unit Chief frowned as he caught Dave's eye for a second. His old friend shrugged, not seeming to know anything more about it all than Hotch. "Can we just slow down a second here?" Hotch turned back to Derek and tapped the file. "This is an abandoned car. We don't know that there's any sort of case."

"Of course there's a case," Morgan protested. He was quickly losing his patients with explanations, but he also knew he needed Hotch on his side. "It's a kidnapping case and we work abductions all the time."

"Yes," Hotch's tone was decidedly non-committal.

Derek sighed in frustration. "And this is Emily we're talking about here."

Hotch remained reserved. "I hear you, but... I also know that Emily left this BAU team three years ago without any word to any of us."

"So, you're holding a grudge now?" Derek held his hands up, somewhat disappointed. "Come on, Hotch!"

"That's not what I'm trying to get across here, Morgan." The team leader shook his head. Everyone else in the room seemed content to remain quiet as they watched the two discuss the matter. Hotch took a deep breath before he finished his thoughts. "Doesn't it seem a little bit coincidental that a few days after you track Emily down, she disappears again? An abandoned car could just mean that she's trying to allude you again. I think it's likely this isn't a kidnapping at all."

"Yes... it... is," Derek growled the words out slowly. "Trust me on this, its not like three years ago, not even close."

"Why are you so sure about that?" Reid finally broke formation to pose the question. He could tell his friend was really upset. "Do you have any other evidence?"

Derek remained frustrated. "Yes, I know there's no way she'd leave like this."

"Morgan..." Hotch began to speak again but was cut off.

"No!" Derek's temper flared, finally letting the team feel the full force of his irritation. "She'd never leave Beth behind!" He caught Garcia's eye, the only one who understood what that actually meant. It seemed some small amount of explanation was finally in order. "Something is really wrong here, because Emily would never leave her daughter like this," he concluded.

JJ stared at him, wide-eyed. "Emily has a daughter?" she asked the obvious question on all their minds at that moment.

There was no time for a proper answer to that question before they were interrupted by Agent Anderson stepping in to the room. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's a call for Agent Morgan on line two. It's Special Agent Nick Casey from the Seattle field office, says he's calling you back. It seemed important."

"You contacted the field office without discussing this with me first?" Hotch glared at Derek, not at all happy with the man's behavior. But he had to admit that it seemed odd Emily would skip town without her child in tow, if she did indeed have a daughter as Derek had just announced. Anderson slowly backed out of the room as Hotch's narrowed eyes continued their securitization of Derek. "Well, you started this, you might as well answer the call," he insisted.

It was JJ who actually hit the speaker button on the phone in the center of their conference table. "Agent Casey, this is Derek Morgan. Thank you for getting back to me so soon. I assume you listened to my message?"

"I did, which surprised me a little. You mentioned the name Emily Stewart and I was just called in on that case at the crack of dawn. I'm kind of curious to know how you already heard about it?"

"You were called in on an abandoned car case?" Reid asked, finding that a bit odd.

"It's more than just an abandoned car," the agent replied.

"Casey, this is Unit Chief Hotchner," he jumped in. "I'm sorry that Agent Morgan called you so early, but I am curious now to know why you've been called in on this. As far as we know Emily Stewart's car..." it felt odd calling her by that last name. "...was abandoned?"

"The car was abandoned, but the area is being processed as a crime scene. Driver's window was busted open and blood was found. Samples have already been sent to a lab. There's more, though. The reason I was called in so soon is because we had something similar occur two weeks ago down in Renton. A woman's car was found abandoned, broken driver's window, blood at the scene and she was reported missing by her husband. That case is still unsolved. I had reports out to all area precincts, which is why when this came up they contacted me immediately. It's still too early to tell if there's a connection between the cases, though."

Morgan had calmed a little at first, thinking surely Hotch would have to take the case seriously now, but his worry returned ten-fold as soon as Casey mentioned the other abduction. "That woman's case, it's unsolved because they never found her?" he asked.

"No, she was found," Casey responded. "Her body washed up on a northern beach of Lake Washington about three days after she'd been reported missing."

The BAU room fell deadly silent after that until Hotch finally spoke up. "Agent Casey, the woman in question, her name was Emily Prentiss several years ago and she's a former member of our team."

"So, you'd like in on the case?" the man guessed. "It's a bit out of your way. Although, if it turns out to be a serial you'd certainly be first on my call list. I welcome your help either way, and I don't think I need to tell you that the sooner we get going on this the better," he concluded.

"We'll be there this afternoon," Hotch agreed. The call was disconnected as he looked to his team. "Wheels up in twenty."

xxx

The jet hummed softly beneath their seats as they began to go over the open case, which they still weren't sure was connected to Emily's disappearance or not. Hotch and JJ sat on one side of the table with Morgan and Reid on the other. Rossi leaned forward from his position on the bench across from them. And their favorite technical analyst stared back at them all from a small window on the laptop. "Garcia, what have you got so far on the first vic..." Hotch stopped himself short as he spared a glance at Morgan who hadn't said a word since they'd taken off an hour ago. "What can you tell us about Lauren Kupfer?"

"She was forty-three years old, five foot eight inches tall, blonde hair and blue eyes. Hair doesn't look like it was a dye job, but the boobs were definitely fake," the spirited woman relayed.

"Excuse me?" Rossi's brows arched in unison.

"Oh, trust me, they had to be done professionally. I don't care what kind of wonder bra you wear, nothing's that perky."

"Garcia," Hotch gently warned.

It was not the tech's intension to speak ill of the dead. On the contrary, her comments were born more of a need to keep things lighthearted when wrapped up in such a dire job. "I'm just saying."

"Penelope, please focus on Emily," Derek finally spoke up.

The analyst only heard the name Emily emit from his mouth, but she could pretty much hear the name Beth permanently attached to it. And her head filled with the images Derek had shown her the day before. That was all she needed to get back on track. "Right... Lauren was married to Philip Kupfer. He's a big muckity-muck something or other with Boeing. Guy makes a lot of money, as in; more than me, but not nearly as much as that Facebook CEO kid. He was questioned in connection to his wife's disappearance and death, but they ruled him out early on. Seems like a pretty good guy on virtual-paper; donates to Seattle Children's Hospital on a regular basis, even volunteers a lot of time there."

"Did Lauren and Philip have any kids?" Hotch asked.

Garcia shook her head on screen. "Nope, not a one," she kept typing for a moment. "No medical records of abortion or miscarriage either. And nothing on fertility treatments or adoption applications."

Reid twirled a pencil in his left hand as he quirked his lips in thought. "If this Kupfer guy makes such good money, I assume Lauren didn't work?"

"You assume wrong, young Skywalker," Garcia quipped. "She'd been working as an assistant at a law firm in Seattle for the last ten years; Meyer, Brennan & Zingler. And it appears that the bulk of their work is in criminal law cases."

Dave rested his elbows against his thighs. "Well, at least that's one small connection to Emily. Maybe. Other than that, victimology doesn't seem to track on this. Appearance wise they're completely different. And Emily's not married, as far as we know."

Morgan was a bit lost in his own thoughts, but managed to keep an ear open. "She's not," he instinctively replied.

"And Lauren and Philip didn't have any children, where as Emily apparently has a daughter," Reid said.

JJ circled a note on her pad of paper that listed Emily's daughter's name. "What about Beth's father?" she looked around the table. "I wonder if he's involved in her life?"

"Could be some animosity there if not," Rossi chimed in.

Hotch agreed with a stiff nod. "Garcia, find us a birth certificate for the child. I'm assuming Beth is short for Elizabeth, like Emily's mother. Try searching records in Seattle to start with," he looked across the table to Derek. "Did you see this little girl? Have any idea how old she is?"

"She's two," Morgan replied.

"Alright, Garcia, that should give you a good time frame," Hotch concluded.

The woman on screen looked a little uncertain about how to proceed as she tried to catch Morgan's attention. "Uh... hey, Derek, do you maybe want to..." she wasn't sure how much she should say, seeing that he looked to be about a thousand miles away at the moment. "You know..."

"Garcia, is there a problem?" Hotch asked. "I need you to run that search right away."

"I understand, sir. I do." She sighed. "It's just that..." her eyes focused on Derek again.

"Why don't you just tell us the truth, Morgan," Rossi suggested. "Save us all some time, which Emily might not have to spare."

Morgan's head popped up, suddenly aware of what was going on. All eyes were darting back and forth between him and Rossi. "Excuse me?"

Dave pursed his lips, but decided to continue with his spontaneous decision. "Well, this little girl, Beth, is your daughter right?" he asked point blank. "That's why Emily left three years ago, because of the affair. You sent her packing because you were about to get married. But then you felt guilty, which is why you called off the wedding and set yourself to tracking down Emily and the child you abandoned."

"I did not abandon my child!" Derek snapped. The rest of the story came tumbling out after that. "Emily left of her own free will, and she left before she even knew she was pregnant. She also never told me. I just found out on Friday about being a dad," he explained.

There was a long, silent pause before Rossi finally responded. "I'm sorry," Dave apologized. "I never really suspected you of hurting Emily in any way, but I figured firing you up was the best way to get some truth out of you. I have been doing this job for a while, Morgan. The second you used the child being left behind as your main reason for believing that Emily had been abducted... well, it seemed pretty obvious what they both mean to you. And it's not as if we haven't all had our suspicions about you and Emily," he concluded.

Derek glanced around the plane to see some rather uncomfortable looks on his colleague's faces. "That true?"

"You did call off your wedding shortly after Emily's departure," Reid bravely replied with a shrug.

JJ nodded along. "And you've spent the better part of the last three years searching for her," she added. "Kind of relentlessly."

"We're all friends here, Morgan, you can talk to us," Rossi offered as he extended his hand across the aisle toward the man. "It also seems some belated congratulations are in order, dad."

A smile spread across Derek's face, despite the worry that still clouded his mind about Emily. He accepted Dave's handshake and goodwill. "Thank you," he replied. Reid's hand was proffered a second later as he too bestowed well-wishes upon his friend. JJ even leaned across the table to place a chaste kiss upon his cheek, in a rare show of affection for the profiler. Morgan sat back after that, seeing that Hotch was eyeing him intently.

Hotch was somewhat saddened that Derek hadn't thought he could be up front with him after all the years they'd worked together. But he respected Morgan as much as anyone he'd ever known, and he knew that having a private life outside the team was a struggle for all of them. He finally offered a congratulatory hand, along with a smile to reflect his genuine happiness for Derek. When the moment passed, Hotch cleared his throat; a signal to all of them that work was once again their priority. "Let's try to look for some other angle on this case before we land," he suggested.

xxx

Emily slowly opened her eyes and quickly closed them again. The right side of her head felt swollen and sore, making the bright sunlight she'd briefly glimpsed all the more painful to her sensitive eyes. But she opened them again, despite the pain, hoping to get some handle on her bearings. She instantly realized her wrists and ankles were strapped to a heavy wooden chair, and there was a table in front of her. Directly across from her was another larger wood table. A figure sat behind that table, but was only visible to Emily as a silhouette; a screen obscuring the person's true identity. To her left and right stood two young men, early twenties; tall and muscled. Emily had no doubt that one of them was responsible for her headache.

As she got used to the light, Emily focused on the surroundings beyond her immediate vicinity. The building appeared to be a manufacturing factory or warehouse, given the several large pieces of equipment positioned all around them. But the rust and dust accumulated on the monoliths caused Emily to guess that the place had long been vacant. When she craned her aching head backwards a little, Emily noticed that many of the high windows had been busted out, also lending to her assessment of abandonment. But at least they allowed streams of soft sunlight in, which helped warm the chilled and damp interior.

"Good morning," a voice greeted her.

The sound was not that of a human, at least not directly. There was clearly some sort of voice distortion device being used. "I'd say it's afternoon considering how high the sun already is," Emily replied. She could barely remember her own name at the moment, but she wanted her captures to know she wasn't going to just roll over and die for them, if that was their ultimate goal.

"Think you're smart, do you?" the voice questioned. "Well, that will all be determined once the trial begins. You are here to be judged and may act as your own council if you wish. Otherwise, I'm sure one of my assistants would be happy to defend you." Mechanical laughter filled the room.

Emily had thought her head couldn't hurt any more, but that high-pitched screech proved her wrong. "I don't understand. Judged for what?"

The laughter swiftly ended. "You know the crime for which you have been charged."

A deep exhale escaped Emily's lungs. It almost felt like she was dealing with her stubborn two year old again. "Uh, no... actually I don't."

"Premeditated destruction of a family unit," the voice stated.

Emily instantly felt sick to her stomach, and not because of her pounding head. She thought about Derek and what she'd done by keeping his daughter from him. But somehow she didn't think this mechanized voice was talking about that large lapse in her own judgment. "So, who is going to be doing the judging at this trail? You? If so that seems to go against the innocent until proven guilty statute of the law, because I'm guessing you're already somewhat biased against me, for whatever reason," Emily pointed out. "I mean, it's just that the whole kidnapping thing is kind of a dead giveaway."

"Shut her up!" the voice ordered its sentries. "Any further outbursts in this court will result in the forfeiture of this trial and we'll go straight to sentencing,"

Emily sighed again. "Well that first foray into self-defense went really well," she whispered to herself as the two young men approached her.

She almost wanted to laugh for the way she'd been so upset at Derek the other day for letting his big mouth get away from him. Emily realized she wasn't too far behind him when it came to blurting out things without thinking, or making major life decisions without thinking them through all the way. She could only hope their poor daughter would somehow be able to overcome that combo of flawed DNA. As the first punch was landed, Emily couldn't help worrying about her daughter again. But she knew that if anything happened to her, at least Beth would have Derek. That gave her comfort as she endured the blows.

To Be Continued...